


Your Love Will Take Me Home

by AbschaumNo1



Series: Back to You [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 1988 is mostly in the background just a warning, Dogs, Family Fluff, Getting Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Marriage, Weddings, Will add more tags as we go along, like...lots of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 67,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbschaumNo1/pseuds/AbschaumNo1
Summary: Andrew doesn’t usually go for team mates. But Seabs… Seabs is hot and Andrew will be damned if he’s not everything he’s looking for in a guy. And it’s just flirting, it’s not like there’s anything more going on between them. Or is there?





	1. Can't Stop This Thing We Started

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, I can't believe I'm finally done with this! Five months worth of work, an extensive spreadsheet of game results (anyone need the Hawks' schedule and game results of the past five seasons plus the current one and the Habs' schedule and results of last season and the current one?) and hours of listening to Bryan Adams songs have turned what started as a 1.5k oneshot into what I call very fondly the monster fic. I've finished writing it, but I'm posting these chapters as I get them back from my beta so there's probably going to be a couple of days between updates.
> 
> A shit ton of love goes out to Megs, who got to hear about this from the start and cheered me on while I was writing! You rock! <3 And just as much love to Isabelle for beta reading! <3  
> And thanks to everyone who put up with me on twitter these past months!
> 
> The title is from the Bryan Adams song Back to You, the same goes for the series title. The title of chapter 1 is from Can't Stop This Thing We Started by (and yes this is a theme) Bryan Adams.

Andrew’s main reaction when he hears that the lockout is finally over is relief. He’s been playing hockey for the past months, unlike some of the others, but it is about time there was NHL hockey again.  
He gets invited to training camp along with Saader, Bollig and Leddy, and he tries not to get his hopes up too much. Sure, it all had sounded pretty positive at his exit interview last season, but he’s still the guy who wasn’t drafted in two consecutive drafts, and he’s not going to forget that. Maybe he will be lucky enough to be part of this team or maybe he won’t, and maybe he will just get to play a couple games in the NHL again but will spend most of his time in Rockford. Either way, he’ll deal with it.  
And maybe making the team should be his only priority at training camp, but when Seabs starts flirting with him, there’s no way he can say no. Priorities were never his strongest suit.

It starts innocently enough, a word of praise here and there, a stick tap to his butt after a good move in a drill. But then the next day Andrew catches Seabs looking and even when he realises that Andrew caught him, he just raises an eyebrow at him and very deliberately looks him up and down. And well, if this is how it’s going… Andrew makes sure that Seabs catches him looking back.

The thing is that Andrew doesn’t usually go for team mates. He’s been there before, but he figured out early on that it’s just a terrible idea. Too much can go wrong. He has had relationships, few and far in between and always on the down low, and the way his career has been going so far has definitely always helped. And at this point his sexuality is more of an open secret that’s just not talked about, instead of an actual big secret. But Seabs… Seabs is hot and Andrew will be damned if he’s not everything he’s looking for in a guy. Besides, he’s young, and he would lie if he said that it wasn’t tempting to give in this once. And it’s just flirting, it’s not like there’s anything more going on between them.  
Andrew makes the team and they keep flirting, and maybe Andrew is developing a crush after all. He just can’t help it. The more he gets to know Seabs, the more he likes him. He’s funny, and caring, and he takes his role as the team’s self-proclaimed motivator and one-man welcoming committee for new guys very seriously. And he’s observant enough to figure out Andrew fairly quickly. Andrew knows he tends to run his mouth, and he knows there’s guys who just get annoyed by it, but Seabs catches on to the subtleties. The first time he knocks their shoulders together on their way out onto the ice, while Andrew is running his mouth out of sheer nervous energy, because he’s here, he’s playing in the NHL, and how is this his life; it works brilliantly. Andrew has no idea why it works, but something settles in him, and he finally manages to fully focus. Seabs throws him a smirk over his shoulder and Andrew can only laugh helplessly.

“You heard about Seabs’ break-up?” Kaner asks him quietly one day. Andrew is confused for a moment. Of course he has heard about that. It happened back in December after all. He doesn’t flirt with guys in relationships. It’s the only other rule he has set himself for flirting. Besides, the rumour mill around the Hawks’ locker room works well enough that even a nobody like Andrew is in the know about stuff like this.  
And so he only replies with, “Yeah, why?”  
Kaner sighs. “It’s just. Jonny and I’ve seen the two of you flirt, and I thought it would be better to tell you. He’s handling it, but maybe don’t expect too much. I’m not sure if he’s ready for more yet or if he’s still rebounding.”  
Andrew nods. In fact, he’s asked himself the very same thing, but Andrew’s young, and well, he’s decided that whatever this turns out to be, he’s allowed to be dumb this one time. Besides, it’s not like he has feelings. It’s just some fun, nothing more and nothing less.

By then they’re a week or so into the season, and whatever they touch they keep winning. It’s a good feeling, and the energy in the room is great. They’re hungry for it, hungry for hockey after crashing and burning in the playoffs last year and the lockout. And they’re hungry for the wins. Even more so than usual, Andrew thinks.

They leave for a road trip at the end of January, and Seabs catches him after their practice in Vancouver.  
“Hey, wanna go out for dinner this evening?” he asks. “Just the two of us.”  
Andrew considers him for a moment. This is definitely more than flirting. This sounds like a date. But he shrugs and says, “Sure, why not.”

Seabs takes him to some fish restaurant. It’s small and not the most upscale, but still nice, and Andrew… Andrew likes it. They have a booth somewhere in a corner, relatively private and a bit removed from the other guests. Seabs is looking good, wearing a pullover over his shirt, and slacks, and with the light playing across his face. He hasn’t done anything with his hair, and it would be unfair how effortlessly good it looks, if Andrew didn’t like it so much. Some distant corner of his mind wonders what it would feel like to run his fingers through it, and if Seabs would be okay with Andrew tugging at it, but he pushes down the thought and focuses on their conversation.  
Seabs is telling him about his house in Kelowna, right by the water, and the massive garden.  
“It’s nice up there,” he says. “Especially in the summer. You should come visit some time.”  
“Yeah? I’ll have to come check it out,” Andrew says with a grin, but it makes him pause a little. Because inviting him to his summer house to spend a few days may be just a friend thing for Seabs, or it may be a more than flirting thing. Either way, it’s not what Andrew expected to hear. But Seabs is still smiling at him across the table, and it’s nice, and Andrew doesn’t have time to worry about this right now.  
The restaurant is not too far from their hotel, so they walk back. There’s a cold wind blowing in from the sea, that makes Andrew shiver when they first step out onto the pavement. It’s not bad, and once he gets used to it it’s fine, but Seabs immediately puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close.  
“Underestimated the wind, eh?” he asks amused.  
And well, it’s kinda nice so Andrew doesn’t protest, just says, “Yeah, must have.”  
Seabs’ arm stays around him all the way back to the hotel, and Andrew can’t help himself, it’s just a very nice end to a great evening. If he gets the chance, he definitely wants to do this again.  
There’s no goodbye kiss at the door to Andrew’s room or anything like that. In fact, Seabs removes his arm from around Andrew as soon as they reach the hotel and they say goodbye in the same casual way they usually do. But Andrew will be damned if this wasn’t a date.

Andrew grabs Saader so they can go out for coffee the day before their game in Nashville. He’s been thinking about that maybe-date in Vancouver, and he really needs a second opinion on this. Also, Saader’s his best friend, and the only one he trusts not to be completely unhelpful about this. Bollig would just laugh at him, and Leddy is a good guy, but well, he’s not Saader.  
And because Saader is Saader he knows something’s up, but he doesn’t ask, just waits for Andrew to start talking on his own.  
“So Seabs took me on a date in Vancouver,” Andrew says, fussing with a package of sugar.  
Saader doesn’t even look surprised, he just nods, as if that’s what he thought. Still, he asks, “Did he say that?”  
“Not exactly,” Andrew admits. “But it felt a whole lot like one. And he invited me to come visit him in Kelowna in the summer. And on the way back he put an arm around my shoulders.”  
“Okay,” Saader says. “And did you want it to be a date?”  
Andrew is silent for a moment. “I think so,” he finally says. “I mean, we’ve been flirting since camp started, and I can’t say I’m not interested. He’s hot, and he’s a great guy. Like… I’m fairly sure he’s perfect boyfriend material.” Andrew shrugs helplessly, because he doesn’t really know how to explain it any better.  
“But you’re not sure if he means it or if you’re reading into things and he’s just looking for a rebound flirt to get over his girlfriend.” And this is why Andrew picked Saader to talk this through with. He just gets how Andrew’s brain works.  
“Yeah,” he says. “Because I mean, even if he thought of it as a date, how am I supposed to know? It’s not like he’s told me. And I can’t exactly go and ask Duncs to translate for me, because he knows him better than I do.”  
Brandon laughs at that. “I’m not sure if he wouldn’t just slam the door in your face and tell you to get your shit together.”  
“Yeah,” Andrew grins.  
They’re silent for a moment and then Andrew says, “How did I end up here? It wasn’t supposed to get like complicated, it was just supposed to be flirting, no strings attached, and no feelings involved.”  
Saader shrugs, but he’s smiling. “I don’t think you can control these things. Either it happens or it doesn’t.”  
“Yeah…” Andrew sighs.  
“I think you should talk to him. Stop just wondering what the hell any of it means, and talk to him. He’s the only one who can tell you what he means by any of it, so he’s the only one you can ask. And hey, maybe he really did mean it to be a date. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.”  
Andrew nods slowly. “Yeah, maybe I should do that.”

Andrew is resolved to talk to Seabs about their maybe-date, but he doesn’t get the chance until the day before their home game against Vancouver a week later. Seabs invites him over to his place for dinner, and hell, it feels even more like a date than the last time, because this is actually at Seabs’ house, where he lives, not some restaurant. And hell, it confuses Andrew a little, especially because Seabs still doesn’t say if it’s a date or not.

He’s punctual, and when Seabs opens the door for him he’s smiling softly, and damn, he’s looking so good Andrew has to concentrate on not doing anything stupid, like pulling him close and kissing him, especially when Seabs gives him an easy welcome hug and invites him in.  
The food isn’t anything fancy, just steaks with potatoes and vegetables, but it’s good, and that’s what counts.  
They talk about this and that. How Andrew’s settling in in Chicago, how it is to live with Saader, has Andrew heard about that new restaurant that’s supposed to be really good? Andrew hasn’t and Seabs says maybe they could go try it out together, and it’s not hard to read into that at all.  
They keep talking after they’re done with their food, plates pushed to the side.  
There’s a short lull in their conversation when Seabs leans forward and takes a sip of his water, before he says, “So, I think we need to talk.”  
And Andrew has to swallow, because here it is, but he nods.  
“I’ll… I think I should start with an apology, because we should have talked about this earlier, but I was an asshole, who was stuck in his own head too much. So, I’m sorry for that.”  
“It’s fine,” Andrew says, because it really is, it’s not like he couldn’t have asked all this time.  
“It’s really not,” Brent says. “Because that’s just part of it. I was in no position to flirt with you at camp. I was still getting over Dayna, and the fact that we broke up, and it was unfair to use you as a rebound flirt at the time.”  
“Maybe it was,” Andrew says and shrugs. “But it wasn’t like I didn’t know about your break-up and couldn’t put two and two together.”  
“Still, I should have talked to you. And I know that now. But that’s still not all.” He pauses and takes a deep breath, and when he looks at Andrew again, it’s with focus and determination. “Because, I got to know you, Andrew, and I realised that I liked you too much for you to be a rebound flirt. And well, Duncs will tell you that I was dumb about it, and he’s probably right, but it took me a bit to realise this. So, I don’t know what you want this to be, but it would make me really happy if you could give me a chance to let this be more than a flirt.”  
Andrew grins happily. “I’m glad you’re asking me that. Because yes, I want to give it a chance.” He takes a deep breath. “Just so you know, I wasn’t thinking anything of this when we started. I thought it was some fun flirting, nothing more. But I also realised at some point that that wasn’t all I wanted, and while I was happy to take whatever you were willing to give, I also hoped that it was more than I thought it was.”  
Seabs, no Brent, because if they’re doing this Andrew can’t keep thinking of him with his nickname, laughs fondly. “Two peas in a pod, eh?”  
And Andrew only grins and hooks his foot around Brent’s ankle under the table, just because he can.

They start dating for real after that. Brent does take him out to that restaurant he mentioned over dinner, and because Saader is a saint and willing to hang out at Leddy’s and crash on his couch for a night, Andrew invites Brent over for dinner a few times. And it’s good. It’s really good. The more Andrew gets to know Brent the more he realises how much he really likes him. Andrew was absolutely right, he is the perfect boyfriend material. And he just gets Andrew, which is amazing really.  
They don’t kiss for the longest time. They hug, and they will hold hands occasionally, but they don’t kiss yet. It’s probably the slowest Andrew has ever gone at the start of a relationship, but he likes it. It’s nice to see that Brent wants to do this right, and that he’s willing to take it slow. Besides, with the shortened season their schedule isn’t the most accommodating in the first place, and some days their dates don’t even consist of classic date stuff, but are just them hanging out on Brent’s couch, playing X-Box or watching some movie and not doing much more, because they’re both kind of tired, and Andrew wouldn’t change anything about this.  
It’s one of those days when they finally kiss. It’s late March, and they somehow have two days between playing the Flames and the Ducks, and they’re nestled comfortably on Brent’s couch, because they’re just glad they get to relax. There’s some action movie playing on the TV, but Andrew isn’t paying a lot of attention to it, because he’s telling Brent about some coffee shop Saader found recently and how it’s kinda pretentious, but they also make the most amazing nutritionist-approved snacks.  
“I’ll have to bring some the next time I come over,” he says, and Brent smiles.  
“You should. If it’s really as good as you’re saying, I want to try.”  
Andrew grins. “You won’t regret it.”  
There’s a lull in their conversation then, and Brent is just watching Andrew, all fond and kind of thoughtful, until he says all of a sudden, “Can I kiss you?”  
Andrew smiles. “I thought you’d never ask,” he teases, but he’s already moving closer and one of Brent’s hands is on the back of his neck, pulling him in, and then they’re already kissing.  
It’s sweet, and the pressure of Brent’s lips against his is perfect, and Andrew has thought about this, has imagined how it would be to finally kiss Brent, but nothing he could imagine can get anywhere close to the real thing. Andrew’s hands move until he has one on each side of Brent’s head, his fingers buried in his hair, which feels just as soft and amazing as he always thought it would. Brent’s tongue is coaxing open his lips, and Andrew gets with the programme and tilts his head to the side, mouth opening to let Brent in, and if this is what Brent tastes like, he doesn’t think he ever wants to stop kissing him. He feels surrounded by Brent and he doesn’t have enough brain function to really think about what it feels like, but he knows it’s one of the best feelings he has ever experienced, and he never wants to give this up, which is something he has even less capacity to think about right now, because wow, what does anything matter that’s not this kiss?  
They kiss more that afternoon, make out a little as well, but that’s where they draw the line. Neither of them wants to start rushing anything now. Things are amazing as they are, they’ll get to sleeping with each other eventually.

Andrew doesn’t think anything of it when Kaner tells him they’re having lunch together in early April. It’s nothing unusual. Andrew knows Kaner pretty much considers him his rookie, just like Saader is Jonny’s rookie, so he doesn’t think anything of it until he enters their usual lunch spot and finds out he’s not just having lunch with Kaner, but with Jonny, Sharpy and Duncs as well. He looks at the four of them, but he rolls with it, because that’s what he does.  
They let him order before they stop beating around the bush. It’s Kaner, who takes the lead and says, “So that thing with you and Seabs.”  
“What about it?” Andrew says.  
“It has come to our attention that there might be more to this than we have thought before. Do you have anything to say to defend yourself?”  
Andrew has to snort, because trust Sharpy to be this over the top.  
Kaner rolls his eyes. “I thought I was supposed to do this, Sharpy.” He turns to Andrew. “As Sharpy said, we’ve heard that things have gotten a bit more serious between you two.”  
“Well, we talked. And then we decided to try dating and stuff,” Andrew says with a shrug.  
Sharpy snorts, and Andrew is fairly sure Jonny just kicked him under the table before he could say anything.  
“Talking is good,” Kaner says. “And we don’t doubt your good intentions.” Sharpy snorts again, and Kaner throws him a look, and says, “We definitely don’t doubt your good intentions. But Seabs is our friend, so we gotta ask: How serious are you about him?”  
“As serious as I can possibly be,” Andrew says without hesitation. And well, it’s the truth. He really is as serious about this as he can be. Hell, he is as serious about this as he is about hockey. And somewhere in between being together with Brent and playing and everything else, he has realised that he doesn’t just want to be with Brent right now, he doesn’t want to go anywhere else. Somehow, without him noticing, Brent has become home and he has fallen in love. He hasn’t told Brent yet, has kept the words close and waited for the right moment to say them, but that doesn’t make them any less true. And maybe he’s young to say this, but he knows this in the same way he always knew he wanted to play hockey and make it into the NHL, deep in his bones, with no room for doubt.  
“You told him that yet?” Duncs asks, and it’s the first thing he’s said since Andrew arrived.  
“Not yet, no,” he admits, and Duncs nods.  
“Don’t waste time waiting. He’s dumb about you, he needs to hear it.”  
It’s probably as much as he’ll get from Duncs so Andrew just nods.  
“I thought we were supposed to intimidate him,” Sharpy says and Duncs rolls his eyes.  
“The Mutt knows better than to do anything stupid like break his heart. Or do you?” He’s levelling his best murder eyes on Andrew, who actually has to swallow, because damn, Duncs is scary.  
“Not planning on it,” he says.  
“See?” Duncs shrugs, as if that settles it.  
“Still,” Sharpy says, turning towards Andrew. “If you do break his heart, we will find you and make you wish you hadn’t.”  
“Understood.” Andrew nods, and he’s saved from any more threats by the arrival of their food, which is probably a good thing, because knowing Sharpy he has no problems detailing exactly how they are going to make Andrew’s life hell if he dares to hurt Brent.

He remembers Duncs’ words a few days later, when he’s staying over at Brent’s place. They still haven’t had sex, which is completely fine, but Andrew has been staying over a few times now, cuddling up to Brent in bed, and sleeping peacefully in his arms. There had been some growing pains at first, until they had found a position that really works for them at night, without any limbs going numb or anyone hitting anyone accidentally, but there’s nothing like falling asleep in Brent’s arms and waking up with him wrapped around Andrew.  
Brent tends to be slow to wake in the mornings, definitely slower than Andrew, who wakes up and jumps out of bed most days. And one of Andrew’s favourite things is watching Brent wake up, stretch and smile at him. It’s a beautiful sight.  
It’s one of those mornings when Andrew remembers Duncs’ words and realises what exactly he meant. Because there is no use in waiting, the way Brent looks at him tells him everything he needs to know, and hell, it’s not like Brent is especially subtle about this.  
“I love you,” he says, because it feels right, and whatever he thought the perfect moment would be like was wrong, because this already is perfect.  
Brent smiles, slow and surprised, and reaches out to pull Andrew closer. He presses a close-mouthed kiss to the corner of Andrew’s mouth and says, “I love you, too.”  
And Andrew smiles and buries his head against Brent’s shoulder and sighs happily.

The regular season seems to be almost over before it has properly begun, and the Hawks just keep winning. They wrap it up with what’s only their seventh loss for the entire season, and as winners of the President’s Trophy, and damn, Andrew doesn’t want to jinx anything, but he’s feeling good about this. Maybe they can go somewhere with it. Hell, if there’s any team he wants to go somewhere with, it’s these guys, and it’s really looking like they can. He knocks on wood whenever he thinks that, because he’d rather be safe than sorry, but he’s really just calling it as it is.  
They all move into a hotel for the time being, and it makes things both easier and harder for Andrew and Brent. They see each other every day, but it’s also the playoffs so it’s not like they get a lot of time to hang out alone, or to do anything much. And it’s not even like they have the energy to do much more than nap together in Brent’s room, and maybe share a kiss or two. But it’s still perfect, because Andrew gets to do what he loves, and he gets to enjoy it with his best friends and with the guy he loves.

They beat the Wild in five games and almost get beaten by the Red Wings in the next round, but they claw their way back and push the series to game seven and beat them on home ice to advance to the Conference Final against the Kings. And it’s good, but they all know it’s not enough for them, they want more, no, they want it all. And they’re all doing what they can to get there.

Whatever the Kings bring to the Conference Final, it’s not enough and they beat them in five games, and damn, Andrew is going to play in the Stanley Cup Final. They have a couple of days until it starts, and Andrew’s family comes down to Chicago to watch, so he spends his free time showing them around the city.  
“You look happy,” his mom tells him over dinner, and Andrew smiles.  
“I am.”  
“It’s good making it this far, isn’t it?”  
“Yeah. But it’s not just that. It’s…everything is coming together right now, and things are good, really good right now.”  
She smiles. “So there’s someone new in your life?”  
Andrew hesitates, they haven’t told their families. And it’s not because they have anything to hide, it’s just…there hasn’t been time really, and they had been throwing around doing it over the summer, when things weren’t quite as crazy as during the season.  
He shrugs finally. “There is. And he’s around. But things are a little crazy with hockey so there hasn’t really been an opportunity to tell you guys and introduce him.”  
“I’m happy for you,” she says. “And no pressure. You know you can take as much time as you need before you introduce him. We wouldn’t want him to get overwhelmed, would we?”  
Andrew has to grin at the thought of Brent being overwhelmed by his family. “I don’t think that’s much of a concern. And I don’t think you could scare him off if you tried, I’m fairly sure some of the guys tried it already.”  
“Brandon thinks he’s good people?” And it’s kind of funny that his mother trusts Saader’s judgement on this, especially since he was probably the least problematic of Andrew’s friends about this.  
“He does,” Andrew says.  
“Well, that’s good enough for me until I meet him. I trust his judgement.”  
Andrew raises an eyebrow, and his father laughs.  
“Brandon’s a good kid, and you trust him, that’s enough for now,” he says. At least it’s Saader’s judgement they trust, not Bollig’s.

They play the Final against the Bruins, and it’s the first time all season that they’re facing them. And sure, they’ve got coaches and staff to make sure they’re prepared, but there’s only so much you can prepare for by watching tape.  
The Bruins promptly push their first game to three overtimes, and hell, Andrew has never been so happy about scoring a goal in his life. Brent grins at him when he congratulates him, a brilliant and beautiful thing, that’s only surpassed when he pulls Andrew into his room at the hotel (to the catcalls of their teammates that Andrew only gives them the finger for) and kisses him silly against the door.  
“Sleep over here?” he asks, when he finally lets Andrew catch a breath. And well, Andrew was never one to say no to an opportunity like this. He gets another soft and brilliant smile from Brent when he says yes, and then he just has to grab his pyjamas and some fresh clothes for the morning from the room he shares with Saader before he gets to fall asleep in his boyfriend’s arms.  
The Bruins win the next one and get a shutout in Game three, which definitely sucks, but they fight back and Brent gets them the game winner in OT. This time it’s Andrew who kisses Brent silly against the door of his room.  
“Two more,” Brent says, resolve burning in his eyes, and grins.  
“Two more,” Andrew echoes, and he knows that Brent must see the same resolve in his eyes, has seen it in the eyes of everyone on the team. It feels like they’re making a promise.  
It carries them through game five and into game six. Andrew stops a puck with his face early into the game, and it fucking hurts, but this is game six of the Stanley Cup Finals, and they could win it all, so he gets stitches, pulls himself together and joins the guys again when they go out for the second period. Brent knocks their shoulders together on the way out, and this time it’s not “settle down” or “you got this” or any of the other things it has meant in the past, it’s the same resolve and the same promise they shared just five days ago, and it needs no words.  
They fight and it takes them until the last minute of the game to score the lead, but they win it and everyone piles onto the ice and Andrew barrels into Saader, both of them laughing and shouting, and fuck, this is the best day of his life. He’s fairly sure he jumps Saader at some point, because he’s so excited, but that’s probably better than jumping Brent and kissing him senseless, which is the alternative. There will be time for that later. First there’s a Cup to hoist and celebrate properly.  
By the time they get back to Chicago it’s the middle of the night, but the streets are filled with people. Andrew and Brent go out with the guys, and Brent pulls him into a corner a little hidden from view. He laces their finger together, and in any other situation they would probably be standing too close together to be able to deny anything, but they just won the Cup and no one cares.  
“Come home with me later,” Brent says. “My family’s in a hotel, no one’s gonna disturb us.” There’s the slightest hint of a promise in his voice and hell, of course Andrew’s going to go home with him.  
They stay a bit longer, but now that he knows what’s waiting for him, it kind of itches under Andrew’s skin, and when he sees Brent he realises that he’s not much better off.  
Brent finally finds him at the edge of the room, drinking a glass of water that Saader wordlessly pressed into his hands a few minutes earlier. Saader is such a mother hen sometimes. But he does have a point, so Andrew isn’t even putting up a token protest.  
Brent grins when he finds him, and his hand brushes Andrew’s free one. “Wanna get out of here once you finish that?” he asks, and Andrew nods before he takes another large gulp from his glass. Emptying it is definitely a priority now.  
“I gotta take this back,” Andrew says when he’s done, lifting his empty glass. “Meet me by the door?”  
Brent nods. “I’ll wait there for you.”  
It takes Andrew longer than planned to bring the glass back to the bar and he kind of has to fight his way through to the door with the amount of people who feel like they have to comment on his stitches. Andrew makes some dumb jokes about needing his beauty sleep more than ever now, and weasels out of any attempt at conversation and flirting, until he finally reaches Brent by the door. Brent takes him arm so he doesn’t lose him and leads the way out.  
They take a cab back to Brent’s place, and Brent wraps an arm around Andrew’s waist as soon as they get out. To anyone who sees it from a distance it probably just looks like Brent’s holding him up a little, but Andrew knows better, and leans into it. Brent keeps him close as he opens the front door, and as soon as it falls shut behind them he uses the arm around Andrew’s waist to pull him in so they can kiss. Brent ends up leaning against the wall of the entrance, one arm still wrapped around Andrew’s waist, the other hand firmly around the back of Andrew’s neck, holding him in place. Not that Andrew wants to go anywhere. He’d be dumb to.  
Instead he does his best to get as close as possible. One of his own arms is around Brent’s neck, while the other holds on to his biceps, because Andrew needs something to hold him steady or he’s fairly sure he will fall over, not because he’s drunk, but because Brent’s kiss has turned his legs into jelly. They stand there and kiss for a while, but then Brent’s hand wanders down to grab Andrew’s ass and Andrew gasps into the kiss.  
“Wanna move this to the bedroom?” Brent asks, sucking in a breath, when Andrew breaks the kiss, gasping.  
Andrew nods, and when he can talk again he says, “Absolutely.”  
Brent smirks and this time when he pulls Andrew back in to kiss him there’s nothing tame about it. It’s filthy and wet and damn, Andrew can’t wait to get to the bedroom.

Andrew leaves early enough the next morning so that he won’t run into Brent’s family, while his own won’t wonder where he’s gone off to. He’s comfortable in Brent’s arms, and he’s reluctant to leave, but today is probably not the day to explain to their families that they’re together.  
Brent gets up with him and makes coffee while they wait for a cab to pick Andrew up and get him home. They kiss slowly, leaning against the counter in Brent’s kitchen, and Brent is only wearing a pair of sweatpants, which is really unfair, because Andrew gets to see him and touch him, but he can’t do much more than run his hands over his torso and remember how he mapped all of Brent’s body with his fingers and his mouth last night. He sighs wistfully when the cab arrives, and he has to go, and Brent smiles and kisses the corner of his mouth.  
“I’ll see you soon,” he says.  
“Yeah.” Andrew leans in for another kiss and then he leaves.

Saader is on their couch when he gets home, and he looks like he’s nursing a hangover, but he smiles when Andrew comes in and lets himself fall into the cushions next to him.  
“Had a good night?” he asks.  
Andrew grins. “The best,” he says. “Turns out celebration sex is pretty amazing.”  
Saader laughs. “That’s good to hear. I’d hate to have to get rid of Seabs for you because the sex sucked.”  
“As if I’d let you.” Andrew scoffs. “As great as it is that the sex is good, it’s not everything. There’s more important things, like feelings and stuff.”  
“Feelings and stuff,” Saader repeats, and he’s definitely laughing at Andrew now. “Sounds real mature, Shawzy.”  
Andrew rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”  
But Saader is still Andrew’s best friend, and Andrew knows that he gets what Andrew’s trying to say. Because, yeah, Andrew likes sex, and he likes sex with Brent, but that’s not all there is to their relationship. Hell, he loves the guy. Of course the sex is not all there is to their relationship.

There’s locker clean out day, and the parade, and a lot more drinking and celebrating in between, and miraculously the guys manage not to tell on Andrew and Brent in front of their families. And well, this whole thing would probably be even better if they could enjoy it together, but they talked about this and now is not the time to make any sort of announcement. They’ve only been together for like a couple months, there’s no need to rush telling everyone and their mother, yet. And they’re definitely going to tell their families over the summer.  
Andrew just enjoys all of it. It’s a special feeling, winning the Cup, and he’s planning on enjoying it as much as he can. Besides, everyone seems to dig his stitches, which is kind of hilarious, because they’re just stitches. They’re not the first ones Andrew got and they surely won’t be the last. But he can feel Brent watch him when he’s surrounded by a gaggle of women who all seem to think it’s really sexy, and he raises an eyebrow at him when he catches his eyes, because really, Brent should know that he doesn’t have anything to fear from them.  
He goes home with Brent every night after celebrating, because well, they’ve won the Cup. If there’s a better excuse to fuck every night, he has yet to find it.

They all leave for the summer eventually, and while they’re not the last ones, Brent and Andrew are both fairly late leaving. But with their families already back home, and most of the guys gone as well, Andrew just grabs a bunch of clothes and spends more than just his nights at Brent’s. They have a lot of sex, and Andrew isn’t ashamed to admit that there’s days when they only leave the bed to use the bathroom and to eat. But eventually they both pack up and book their flights and all of a sudden it’s their last day together in Chicago.  
“You’ll have to come visit me in Kelowna,” Brent says over breakfast that morning.  
“Only if you come visit me in Ontario, as well,” Andrew says, smiling. “My mom already told me she wanted to meet whoever it is I’m seeing.”  
Brent laughs. “Yeah. We wanted to do that over the summer anyways, didn’t we?” He takes a sip of his coffee. “So how much have you told your folks yet?”  
Andrew shrugs. “Not much. Just that I’m seeing someone and that we haven’t gotten round to do introductions yet, because things have been crazy. My mum basically just asked if Saader thinks you’re good people, and when she heard that he does, that was enough for her.”  
Brent smiles warmly. “That’s pretty much what I told my parents when they were here as well. Though my mom trusts my judgement enough to not need Duncs’ opinion on who I’m dating.”  
“To be fair, it just happened to come up. She wasn’t overly worried before I told her that.” He smiles at Brent across the table, and Brent entangles their feet, and wow, Andrew’s gonna miss him.

Andrew goes home to Ontario and Brent is off to BC and they have to stick to texting and facetiming and phone calls during the weeks leading up to the convention. They each have their days with the Cup, and Andrew has his birthday and it’s all kind of busy with them having won the Stanley Cup and everything that entails, and training for the next season.  
Andrew fully plans to spend the convention weekend at his and Saader’s apartment. But Brent asks him if he wants to stay at his place instead and so he never even sees it from the inside.  
They make plans to tell their families about them in August, but mostly they catch up with the others, cuddle on the couch and enjoy the few days they have together. When Andrew kisses Brent goodbye before they both leave again, it’s with a plan in mind and knowing he will see him again soon.

 

Andrew is still gearing up to tell his parents about Brent and their relationship, and the fact that Brent’s coming to visit next week, when Brent calls him out of the blue.  
Andrew frowns at his phone before he picks up, but when he says “Hey babe” he’s already smiling again.  
“Hey.” And Andrew just immediately knows that something must be wrong. Because it’s just the one word, but Brent sounds…off.  
“What’s up?” he asks, aiming for something like consoling, but sounding worried instead.  
“It’s…” Brent hesitates, as if he’s not quite sure how to continue, and Andrew waits patiently. “It’s Dayna.”  
And well, now Andrew has to swallow, because if this is about the woman who broke up with Brent last December, it probably isn’t good. But he doesn’t say anything, because he’s sure Brent has more to say.  
“She called me this morning, and apparently she was pregnant when we broke up and didn’t think to tell me until after the kid was born.”  
“Oh,” Andrew says, because that’s not exactly what he expected to hear.  
“Yeah, that sums it up pretty nicely,” Brent agrees. “Anyways, she apologised for not letting me know at least, so there’s that. But she can’t take care of the kid, so it’s either I take him or she gives him up for adoption.” He trails off there, and Andrew’s fairly sure he knows what Brent has decided, because this is Brent and there’s only one way he can decide in this situation.  
“And you’re taking him,” Andrew says. It’s not a question.  
“Yeah. I just…he’s my son, I can’t just abandon him. And…I know it’s going to be hard to raise him on my own, but I’m going to work it out.”  
“We,” Andrew corrects him. “You mean we are going to work it out.”  
“Andrew…I can’t ask this of you.”  
Andrew has to roll his eyes, even though he knows Brent can’t see it.  
“That’s why you’re not asking. But I’m offering.”  
“You’re twenty-two, you’re still young, you shouldn’t be stuck with me and my kid.”  
“It’s my life,” Andrew reminds him. “And I choose to do this. I love you Brent, who do you think I am that you think I would let you hang out to dry when you obviously need me? I choose you and I choose your son.”  
“I…thank you.” And god, Brent sounds so relieved, Andrew just wants to put his arms around him and reassure him some more. Still, it’s good Brent sees reason, because Andrew was already gearing up to call Duncs to talk some sense into his best friend.  
“Good. I’m going to call my mum and then I’m booking the next flight to Kelowna that I can find. I’ll text you my flight details when I have them,” Andrew says decisively.  
He can hear Brent release a breath before he says, “Yeah.” There’s a pause and then he adds, “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”  
Andrew smiles, too. “Me too. I’m sure he’s perfect.”  
“He is.” And Andrew can hear Brent’s smile now, which is much better than the worry from the beginning of their call.  
“I love you,” Andrew says, and only hangs up once he has heard Brent say the words back.

He allows himself a moment to freak out then, because hell, he just essentially told Brent he’d raise a kid with him. He’s twenty-two, he shouldn’t be allowed to take responsibility for a baby yet. He takes some deep breaths before he finally unlocks his phone and calls his mom.  
“Hey mom,” he says when she picks up. “I uh got something to tell you.”  
“What is it?” she asks, and he knows she has honed in on his tone, but she’s trying not to show how much she’s worrying right now.  
“Remember how I told you that I’m seeing someone when you were in Chicago?”  
“Yes, I do. Did anything happen?”  
“No, no. Well, something did happen, but we’re not breaking up or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”  
“Okay.”  
Andrew takes a deep breath. “Well, first of all the guy I’m dating is Brent Seabrook. You know, my teammate?”  
There’s a moment of silence from her end, before she says, “Yes, I remember him. Didn’t you tell me that he has a girlfriend?”  
“They broke up in December.”  
“Ah, okay. So if you’re not breaking up and you’re definitely not dating a guy in a relationship, what’s the problem?”  
“Well you see, his girlfriend was pregnant when they broke up and didn’t tell him. And now the kid is born and… she can’t raise him.”  
“So Brent’s going to raise him, right?”  
“Yeah. And I…I can’t leave him alone with this.”  
“I didn’t expect anything else from you.” Andrew’s fairly sure she’s smiling wistfully right now. “I just hope you thought this through. Raising a kid is a life-time commitment, you can’t just walk away because it’s harder than you thought.”  
“I know. But I want this. I love Brent, and if that means I help him raise this kid, then so be it.”  
His mom is silent for a moment, and he can hear her sigh, but then she says, “You know, I wouldn’t call myself thrilled. I never thought I’d see you become a father so young. But you’re doing the right thing, and I’m proud of you for that.”  
“Thanks, mom.” Andrew has to swallow. “I’ll try to do good by both of them.”  
“I know you will. I assume you’re going to leave and join them as soon as you can.”  
“Yeah. I still have to book my flight, but I’m taking the first one I can find.”  
“Good. I’ll tell everyone here. You just make sure to send me pictures of my grandson.”  
Andrew laughs. “I definitely will. I hope you and dad will come visit when things have calmed down a little.”  
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.” His mom’s voice is warm and after clearing up a few details they hang up again and he finally gets to book his flight.

He flies out the following morning and Brent picks him up from the airport. Brent is looking a little tense when he says hello, but he accepts Andrew’s one-armed hug easily. When he takes Andrew’s hand and squeezes it as soon as they’re sitting in the car it’s warm and sure.  
“I guess this is your last chance to leave before you have to face my family,” Brent jokes when they reach his house.  
“If anyone’s leaving, it’s not me,” Andrew says with more bravado than he’s actually feeling. This is still Brent’s family they’re talking about. Like yeah, he’s met them, but only briefly and not like, officially as Brent’s boyfriend, and definitely not as the guy who has just agreed to help him raise a child.  
But Brent sees right through it, and leans in for a quick kiss. “You’ll do great, babe.”  
Andrew nods and gives him a smile that comes out a bit shakier than he had hoped it would.  
“They’ll be charme, I’m sure.”  
“So you admit I’m charming?” Andrew manages a real grin this time, as Brent shakes his head with a soft laugh.  
“You charmed me, didn’t you?”  
“Well if you say it like that…”  
They smile at each other and then they finally leave the car. Brent’s mom opens the door when they walk up the stairs to the porch, and Andrew suspects she was waiting for them.  
“Mom, this is Andrew. My boyfriend,” Brent says “Maybe you remember him from Chicago”  
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Seabrook,” Andrew says, offering his hand for her to shake. Whatever some of his teammates say, his mother taught him manners.  
But Brent’s mom pulls him into a hug instead. “Call me Nancy,” she says, smiling. Andrew nods, and she steps back from the door. “But the two of you should come in, I’m sure you’re hungry after that flight, Andrew.”  
“I could definitely eat.” Andrew grins easily. He knows he’s probably not completely off the hook yet, but Nancy hasn’t ripped off his head so far, so he’s going to count that as a win.  
“Why don’t you take Andrew’s stuff to the bedroom, while we find him something to eat, Brent?”  
Brent huffs in amusement, but he only says, “Yes, mom.” and takes Andrew’s things up the stairs, while Nancy leads Andrew into the kitchen.  
If Andrew hadn’t already suspected that she staged this to corner him alone, the finished sandwich Nancy pulls out of the fridge is a dead giveaway. She unwraps it and they sit down in the breakfast nook, Nancy across from him.  
“You’re young to agree to raise a child,” Nancy says after a moment.  
“I know,” Andrew says. “And under normal circumstances I wouldn’t even have thought about it, yet. But I can’t leave Brent hanging. Even if I still have a lot to learn.”  
“So you’re sure you want to be with Brent. Raising a child is a lifelong commitment.”  
“Yes. And I don’t take it lightly. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t all in.”  
Nancy regards him for a moment, but then she nods. “I believe you. I just wanted to make sure.”  
“I get it,” Andrew reassures her. “My mum said the same things when I told her.”  
Nancy smiles. “I look forward to meeting her.”  
“I’m sure she does, too.”  
Andrew finally picks up his sandwich, and when Brent walks into the kitchen a minute later, Nancy has gotten Andrew to talk about himself and his family. Andrew scoots over a little so Brent can sit next to him. Brent smiles and squeezes his knee under the table.  
“So I guess he passes muster,” Brent says.  
“He does,” Nancy replies easily. “As long as you’re happy.”  
“I am.”  
Nancy nods and as Andrew finishes his sandwich he reaches out and takes Brent’s hand under the table. This part they got.  
He gets to meet their son a bit later. Nancy shoos them out of the kitchen as soon as Andrew is done eating, and Brent leads him to the living room, where he is sleeping peacefully in a cradle. Their hands still entwined they stand there and look down on him, and Andrew is in love. There is no way he can leave this kid now. No way.  
“What’s his name?” he whispers to Brent.  
“Dayna named him Carter Seven,” Brent says with a lopsided smile.  
Andrew has to laugh. “Like on Seinfeld?”  
“Yeah just like on Seinfeld.”  
Nancy stays until after dinner, and uses the time to show them the ropes. Andrew soaks it up, while Brent accepts it with wry humour, because unlike Andrew he got to hear this several times already.  
They spend the rest of the evening on the couch together, cuddling and mentally preparing to get up in semi-regular intervals, because new-borns have no concept of normal sleep cycles.  
Andrew is getting drowsy when Brent kisses his temple and says, “I’m glad you’re here.”  
“‘M glad, too. Love you too much to leave you alone.”  
Brent stills in surprise, but then he rests his head against Andrew’s and says, “I love you, too.”  
Andrew smiles widely and buries his nose deeper in the folds of Brent’s shirt.

Over the next few days they settle into as much of a routine as they can. It’s hard, but with the help of Brent’s family, especially Nancy, and a few helpful pointers from Duncs and Kelly Rae when they come over, they manage. There’s a lot to organise. They convert one of the guest rooms into a nursery for Carter, call their agents, call the Hawks, message their teammates, and do about a hundred other things it turns out they have to do.  
Once most things are settled, Andrew asks his parents if they want to come to meet their grandson. They fly out the weekend after, two weeks after Andrew himself came, and Andrew picks them up from the airport.  
His mom wraps him in a hug as soon as she sees him. “How are you holding up?” she asks.  
Andrew smiles. “Well enough for now. We’re managing, I think.”  
His mom nods. “That’s the best you can do. Take each day as it comes and figure it out together.”

Brent is in the kitchen when they get home, leaning against the counter, a cup of coffee next to him and his phone in his hand. He puts it down as soon as he sees them, and straightens. Andrew heads over to him and gives him a kiss.  
“Is he finally sleeping?” he asks.  
Brent nods. “About half an hour ago.”  
Andrew turns and smiles at his parents. “Mom, dad, you’ve met my boyfriend, Brent?”  
His mom hones in on Brent, and god, Andrew knows that look.  
“So you’re the man my son wants to raise a child with,” she says.  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
If he hadn’t spent so much time with him, Andrew would probably miss the twitch of Brent’s fingers that is the only hint at how nervous he really is.  
“If you break his heart you’ll have to deal with me.”  
“I’ll try not to.”  
Andrew’s mom watches him for a moment before she takes pity on him and nods. “Good. Now call me Darlene.”  
Brent smiles. “It’s good to meet you Darlene.”  
“Do you want to see Carter now?” Andrew asks before his mom can decide to embarrass him further.  
Darlene nods, and Andrew shows her and his dad to the living room. They’re utterly charmed by Carter.

As it turns out Nancy and Darlene get along like a house on fire. It takes them about five minutes to become friends and to decide how to split helping duties between them for the few days that Andrew’s parents are in Kelowna, while Andrew’s and Brent’s dads chat about fishing. Andrew and Brent are content to sit back and share amused smiles.

They head back to Chicago in early September to get Carter settled in before training camp, and to convert one of the guest rooms in Brent’s house into a nursery. They also need to find a nanny to take care of Carter when they’re on road trips.  
Finding a nanny proves a little more difficult than they had hoped. As well as they can plan their schedule in advance, a lot of their candidates don’t seem too thrilled, and Carter’s age complicates things further.  
They interview a lot of candidates, including one who seems to immediately judge them when she hears they’re professional athletes and another who walks out because no thank you, she can’t work with “gays”. In the end one of their last possible candidates turns out to be the one. Her name is Liz and they both like her immediately. As it turns out they all get along great, and they unanimously decide to give her the job.

They spend one day moving Andrew’s things into Brent’s house and Andrew never realised how much stuff one person could accumulate in such a short time. He leaves a bunch of it behind for Saader to use or throw out and takes the rest. His clothes fit perfectly into the empty half of the closet, and the smile on Brent’s face when he watches Andrew hang up his game day suits and fold his t-shirts is so distracting that Andrew needs to take a break to kiss him against the door of the closet. Before it can turn into more though, Carter demands their attention from where Brent put him down on the bed and they have to break their kiss.

It’s a bit weird at first to look around what he still thinks of as Brent’s house and find his own things everywhere, but Andrew gets used to it pretty quick, and the first time he sees Brent drinking his coffee from some dumb mug Bollig got him as a joke gift, Andrew gets weirdly happy and has to hide his smile behind his own mug.

By the time training camp comes, the house feels like home. Carter’s nursery is done, and Liz has taken over one of the remaining guest rooms to use as her room when she takes care of Carter. They had agreed that she’d stay living at the apartment she shared with a friend, and only would be at the house when they needed her. As much as they were gone, Brent and Andrew agreed that they wanted to take care of Carter as much as possible when they could.

Andrew hangs out with the guys a few days before camp starts, and egoistic as it makes him feel he’s glad he doesn’t have to take care of Carter for the evening. Babies are tiring.  
“I can’t believe you agreed to help Seabs raise his son,” Leddy says, shaking his head as they watch the Brandons destroy each other on NHL ‘12. “Like, you’ve been together a couple months, who agrees to raise a kid that soon into a relationship?”  
“Shawzy does,” Saader says.  
“Who would have known the Mutt would turn out to be more responsible than the Man-Child,” Bollig chimes in and immediately gets scored on by Saader, which only serves him right.  
“I can be plenty responsible if I want to,” Shawzy says.  
“You keep telling yourself that, Mutt.”  
“I don’t see you volunteering to become a dad, either.”  
Saader scores on Bollig’s team one final time to win the game and turns around to smile at Andrew. “I think you’ll do great. Seabs must too, or he wouldn’t let you do it.”  
Saader is definitely Andrew’s favourite.

Brent’s a grumpy lump on the couch when Andrew gets home, and Andrew doesn’t even change into something more comfortable, he just sits down next to him and pulls him close. Brent says nothing, just sighs and drops his head onto the back of the couch.  
“Our son was decidedly not in the mood to be considerate today. I think he knew you weren’t home.”  
“You could have called,” Andrew says. “I would have come.”  
“I wasn’t gonna take your time with your friends away from you.”  
“I see their ugly mugs all the time, I would have survived.”  
“You can make up for it by taking the night shift tonight.”  
“I was on night duty anyways.”  
“See?” Brent chuckles tiredly, and Andrew decides to count it as a win. He tugs on Brent’s hand.  
“Come on, old man, let’s get you to bed.”  
And Brent must be more tired than he has let on, because he lets the comment slide, and just follows Andrew, who grabs the baby monitor from the coffee table before he leads Brent up the stairs to their bedroom.  
In their bed, Brent wraps himself around Andrew, and just falls asleep. Andrew smiles and breathes in Brent’s scent, before he closes his eyes and sleeps as well.  
He has to get up twice that night, and Carter doesn’t want to settle back down either time. It’s almost as if he knows that they’re going to be busy with camp soon and won’t be around much, and he doesn’t want them to go. Or maybe he just feels like being particularly difficult right now. Either way, Andrew gets why Brent was so tired earlier. The second time he gets up, he doesn’t go back to bed, because he ends up falling asleep in the rocking chair in the nursery with Carter finally asleep in his lap.  
Brent finds them like that when he gets up the next morning, and snaps a quick picture with his phone, before he carefully moves Carter to his cradle, and rouses Andrew enough to get him into bed to catch some more sleep.

If they hadn’t been convinced that Liz was perfect for her job before, they would have been after camp, because she’s hands down amazing with Carter, and she really fits in with their little family. It may not be the most professional thing, but it doesn’t take her long to get comfortable with them and crack jokes at their expense. Andrew loves her a little, and Brent agrees with him that they’re lucky to have her.  
And camp goes well, really well. They haven’t lost many guys over the summer and for everyone who remains their Stanley Cup win was a really good ego booster. They’re all eager to repeat the performance.

At home Liz makes it very clear that they’re not allowed to get up at night when Carter cries. “Hockey is your job,” she says. “I’m the nanny, and I’m here so you can focus on your job and pay the bills.”  
When she finds Andrew up, calming down Carter one night she just raises a very pointed eyebrow.  
Andrew shrugs in return. “I couldn’t sleep, so I got up when I heard him. You can go back to sleep if you want to.  
Liz rolls her eyes at him and quips, “Just make sure this won’t be a common occurrence. You need your sleep.”  
“It won’t,” Andrew replies with a grin.  
When he crawls back into bed ten minutes later Brent rolls over, wraps an arm around him and grumbles sleepily, “Where were you?”  
“Just with Carter. I couldn’t sleep and he woke up.”  
“Missed you.”  
“I’m back now, okay?”  
Brent just makes a noncommittal sound and Andrew smiles even though Brent can’t see it.

Jonny seems to think he has to do the whole “Seabs is my friend, and your intentions better be good” shtick with Andrew again, and so Andrew finds himself opposite his captain one afternoon. Jonny is in full Captain Serious mode and Andrew finds the whole situation kind of hilarious. He’s gotten the whole speech from Duncs and Sharpy already, and Jonny has nothing on them, because Andrew is fairly sure Duncs knows how to kill a guy and make sure no one ever finds the body, and you never quite know with Sharpy, he is way too good at scheming.  
“I think you’d have to get in line if it ever came to that,” Andrew says, when Jonny is done threatening him. “And I’m not sure there’d be a lot of me left for you once Duncs and Sharpy are done with me.”  
Jonny smiles wryly. “That won’t save you.”  
“Listen, Jonny. I know I’m young and reckless,” Andrew says very seriously. Jonny scoffs, but Andrew doesn’t give him a chance to get a comment in. “But I’m not completely stupid. I know raising a child is a big responsibility, and I can’t just back out of it because I realise it’s harder than I thought. And I’m not going to. I love Brent, and I love Carter, and I only want the best for them. And you’ve got to trust Brent on this, too. He’s old enough to know what he wants and to take care of himself.”  
Jonny studies him for a long moment, before he nods. “You mean that, don’t you? About not backing out.”  
“Of course I do.” Andrew grins widely. “When have I ever backed out of anything?”  
“Good. Then we won’t have a problem.”

“What did Jonny want?” Brent asks him when he gets home.  
Andrew laughs. “He gave me another shovel talk, because the first one wasn’t enough apparently.”  
“God no,” Brent groans. “I told him not to.”  
Andrew shrugs. “He’s just looking out for you. I’d do the same for Saader or Leddy or Bollig. Besides, he’s nowhere near as terrifying as Duncs and Sharpy were.”  
“Those two actually got to you this time, didn’t they?” Brent says with a laugh, and he pulls Andrew down to sit next to him on the couch.  
“Well yeah, they’re actually scary.” Andrew arranges their limbs until he’s satisfied, and leans into Brent’s side. “I mean, Duncs could probably kill me and make it look like an accident or something. And Sharpy would probably help him.”   
“I think you’re overestimating Duncs. He’s not a criminal mastermind, he just likes to read about them.”  
“You have to say that, you’re his best friend.”  
Brent laughs, and takes his face into his hands to pull him in for a kiss. He stops before their lips meet, looks into Andrew’s eyes and smiles as he says, “You’re not going to break my heart though, are you?”  
Andrew smiles back. “Not a chance in the world.”  
“Good,” Brent says, and then he closes the distance and their lips meet in a gentle kiss. Brent coaxes Andrew’s lips open and deepens the kiss a little, and Andrew is about to get lost in it when there’s a sound from the baby monitor and Carter is definitely awake and hungry from the sound of it. They pull apart and groan in unison.  
“Your son has terrible timing,” Andrew tells Brent, who scoffs.  
“Our son. Which is why I think you should go and look after him.”  
Andrew pouts. “But I just came home.”  
“Which is all the more reason for you to go.” Brent smirks, and Andrew sighs.  
“It was worth a try.”  
He gives Brent a quick peck on the lips, gets up and goes up to the nursery. Carter turns out to be cranky and in need of a diaper change as well as food, which makes Andrew wrinkle his nose, because of course he is. Still it’s not like there is a way out of this, so he sucks it up and gets to work.

They start the season with two home games, and as soon as he steps onto the ice Andrew starts grinning and can’t stop. This is it, this is what he loves.  
Brent skates past as Andrew is going through his warm-up routine, and the way he smiles at Andrew is so fond it makes his heart stutter a little. But it’s also all he needs to see to know Brent is just as happy about playing again as he is.

The season goes well, Andrew tries not to compare it to the last all that much, for obvious reasons, but he thinks they can still be proud of themselves. Things with Brent go well, too. They have their bumps, as they are wont to, but for the most part it’s small things that are easily solved through talking. They have their occasional little spats about who gets to get up to calm down Carter when he wakes up in the middle of the night, but they have a system, and it works pretty well most of the time.  
Some nights Andrew wakes up and realises that Brent’s side of the bed is cold, just to find him asleep in the rocking chair in the nursery with Carter in his arms. Andrew wakes him up whenever it happens, and gently leads him back to the bed when he just blinks at him sleepily. But then that’s nothing Brent doesn’t do for him regularly, too.   
It’s not perfect domestic bliss, but Andrew is happy and he guesses it’s as good as it gets.

They’re both secretly a little glad when late November rolls around and it’s time for the Circus Trip. It’s almost two weeks of being away from home, away from Carter, but it’s also almost two weeks of getting to sleep through the night without having to get up. The first night, before their game against the Avalanche, they all but collapse on the bed in Brent’s room and sleep, Andrew curled into Brent, who wraps himself around him protectively. It may not be overly comfortable, but it’s the best night of sleep they’ve had in months.  
Brent takes him out on a date in Vancouver, and Andrew smiles all the way through it. He remembers their first date, back in February, and how Brent had casually put his arm around Andrew’s shoulders on the way back to the hotel, because he claimed Andrew looked like he was cold. Andrew had used the opportunity to burrow into Brent’s side as much as was comfortable while walking. He had felt safe then, right, and he had hoped that this would be more than a casual flirt, that he could make this his place. Nine months later and neither of them needs an excuse anymore, walking with Brent’s arm heavy on his shoulders, and his own wrapped around Brent’s waist comes as natural to Andrew, as breathing. And whether it’s here, on a street in Vancouver, going back to the team hotel after having dinner together, or on their couch back in Chicago, Andrew’s favourite place is next to Brent, with his arm around him.

November blends into December. Andrew blinks and it’s almost Christmas. He spends an afternoon agonising over what present to get Brent, until he finds himself looking through pictures on his phone and has the perfect idea.  
He enlists Liz’s help with it, because well, it involves crafts and Andrew always preferred sports over anything artsy. Luckily for him, she takes one look at him, pats his cheek, and coos, “Don’t you worry your pretty head, I’ll help you out.”  
“Thank you. You’ll definitely get credit for it.”  
“Oh, I’m not doing it for the credit,” she laughs. “I’m just saving myself from having to look at whatever it is you end up with if I leave you to your own devices.”  
Andrew grins at that, a little embarrassed. “I’d hate to have to explain to Brent that you quit because of my horrible art skills.”  
“As if that was enough to make me quit. Have you seen the scribbles some kids call art?”  
“But if they do it, it’s cute, I’m just a guy who’s bad at art.”

Andrew gets checked into the boards badly in their game against Dallas, and stays in Chicago for the road trip to Minnesota. He and Liz use the time without Brent to pick out photos and start working on the actual present.  
It’s pretty awesome in Andrew’s opinion.

They get to be home for Christmas and New Year’s, so both of their families come to Chicago for the holidays. It’s lucky they don’t need Liz with so many people around to take care of Carter, because even with the house they can only barely fit everyone. Their brothers end up bunking together, and if Andrew‘s fully honest he has his doubts about whether that was a good idea or not.  
Liz leaves town to see her own family, along with her boyfriend, but not without making Andrew promise to tell her about Brent’s reaction to the present, and Andrew is only too happy to agree to that.  
They spend Christmas Eve with their mothers enlisting everyone’s help in the kitchen so there’s enough food for all of them, and in between heckling his brothers, and peeling potatoes Andrew catches Brent’s eye across the kitchen and grins at him. Brent’s smile in return tells him everything he needs to know: This is exactly how it’s supposed to be.

Christmas morning dawns and for once Andrew gets to sleep in. He doesn’t have problems getting up usually, but with Carter, mornings spent in bed have become even rarer than they were and Andrew is absolutely taking the chance, presents be damned. He hears Carter early in the morning, but before he can even consider getting up after all, he hears someone else going to the nursery and he turns around and goes back to sleep  
When Andrew wakes up the next time it’s to Brent’s head on the pillow next to his, and one of Brent’s arms slung across his torso. Brent’s looking soft and relaxed, and Andrew’s heart is so full he thinks it might burst. He turns very slowly, trying not to disturb Brent, just to watch him like that. There’s a distant corner of his brain that thinks about how he must be really gone to consider this a highlight of the morning, but it’s easily ignored in favour of tracing Brent’s face with his eyes and trying to memorise the way it’s looking right now. Andrew is not ashamed to admit that he has memorised Brent’s face in all kinds of situations.  
The first sign that Brent is waking is the way his hand grabs hold of Andrew’s shirt, and how he tries to bury his face in the pillow to evade the sharp reality of the morning. He groans, and then he slowly blinks fully awake and looks right at Andrew. The sleepy smile that slowly steals across his face is one of Andrew’s favourites, and perhaps the most treasured one in his mental library, because this smile is all his. He’s the only one who gets to see it and he is the reason for it. It makes him feel a little powerful, and giddy with happiness. It’s this smile that he reminds himself of when he’s feeling a little overwhelmed and stretched thin between hockey and being a dad to Carter, because they’re in this together, and he loves this guy a lot.  
Brent stretches a little, and then he leans over for a quick closed mouthed kiss (which is better, because Andrew doesn’t love him enough to deal with his morning breath. Yet).  
“Carter?” Brent asks, voice still a little sleep-rough.  
Andrew smiles. “Taken care of, just like our moms promised.”  
Brent closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Andrew’s. “Thank god.”  
They lie there, cuddling and talking softly until they can hear the others stirring and decide to get up.  
They’re the first ones downstairs, even with fetching Carter from his crib first, and while Andrew starts the coffee machine, Brent gets everything together to make pancakes. Andrew fixes his coffee for him and is rewarded with a quick kiss when he puts it down next to the mixing bowl before he gets Carter his breakfast and starts feeding him. It’s not so different from their usual morning routine, except Brent’s mom comes in and wordlessly joins her son in his breakfast-making. One by one the rest of their families trickles in, gets their coffee and checks in on breakfast. His mother easily avoids Keith’s attempt at stealing some of the batter. He accepts it with minimal sulking in favour of joining the others by the breakfast nook. Carter has ended up on Andrew’s mom’s arm by then, surrounded by Andrew’s brothers, who are pulling faces at him to make him laugh.  
They have their family breakfast together and after Nancy has successfully roped their brothers into doing the clean-up they gather around the living room to open their presents.  
For a while everyone is occupied with sorting through the small pile under the tree to find their own presents, but then it devolves into the rustling of torn wrapping paper. Brent and Andrew start with Carter’s presents. There’s a lot of baby clothes, the same stuffed animal twice from both their parents (”You’ll be glad when he throws one into the dirt and can pull out another one while you have to wash the first,” Andrew’s mom explains wisely), and a custom Seabrook-Shaw jersey from the guys that Andrew suspects was Sharpy’s idea. He’s kind of impressed that they managed to fit both their names onto the thing.  
And then finally Brent opens Andrew’s present and pulls out the calendar.  
It’s a fairly simple photo calendar that he and Liz filled with photos of Andrew, Brent and Carter. Andrew watches Brent as he flips through it. There’s a soft smile on his face, and Andrew is fairly sure he’s allowed to give himself and Liz a pat on the back for this. Brent reaches July and lets out a laugh.  
“Already being a bad influence on the kid, babe?” he says, but it’s with a twinkle in his eye, and he’s obviously more amused than actually mad.  
“I’m a delightful influence,” Andrew says, and he somehow manages to keep his face straight, but as soon as the words are out he can’t help the grin anymore. It’s not even his fault that the July photo is what it is. Liz had found the picture in the depths of Andrew’s phone somewhere. He dimly remembers Bollig taking it, but before Liz had found it he had completely forgotten about its existence. In the photo Andrew is on the couch at his and Saader’s apartment. He has clearly just woken up from a nap and is not ready for Bollig’s shit, because he’s glaring at the camera sleepily and flipping it off. Andrew wouldn’t have included it in the calendar. It’s a dumb picture, and it’s not like they had problems filling the calendar anyways. But Liz had thought it was hilarious and insisted that they include it. Going by the way Brent looks at it right now, it seems like she had a point.  
Brent’s own present for Andrew is a bit more mysterious. It’s a dog leash, which Andrew raises an eyebrow at. He has to bite back the comment that’s at the tip of his tongue, but before he can ask Brent says, “I know you like dogs, so I thought we could maybe get a dog together.”  
Andrew gives him a surprised look, but it’s replaced with a broad grin soon enough. “I’d love to get a dog with you,” he says, and Brent smiles happily.  
“I’ve already talked about it with Liz,” Brent says. “She asked that we don’t get a large dog, but she’s fine with taking care of a small one when we’re on the road.”  
Andrew sighs. “She’s too good for us, we don’t deserve her.”  
Brent just laughs at that.

Their parents stick around until after New Year’s. They get a back to back right after Christmas that they split between beating the Avalanche and holding on to a point in St. Louis, and then just one more home game before New Year’s and the short trip to New York City right after. Sharpy’s hosting a New Year’s party for everyone at his house. There’s a room for the kids set up and Carter is happy enough when they leave him with the nanny Sharpy and Abby hired for the occasion. They mingle with their team mates, and for most of the evening they’re moving around different parts of the house. Brent is talking to Duncs and Kelly-Rae somewhere, while Andrew is hanging around with the other young guys. He goes to find Brent shortly before Midnight and finds him at the edge of the living room, talking to Jonny’s mom. Andrew easily slots himself in at his side, and Brent continues his sentence without a hitch while sliding an arm around Andrew’s waist.  
“I was just telling Andree about Carter,” he explains, turning a little towards Andrew.  
Andree smiles at him warmly. “He told me how supportive you’ve been from the start. It’s impressive to hear.”  
“I couldn’t leave him alone with this,” Andrew says with a smile of his own. “It wasn’t even a question to be honest.”  
Andree nods, and after asking about his parents’ health excuses herself. Brent fully turns to him as soon as she’s gone and rests both of his hands at Andrew’s sides.  
“It’s almost time,” he says, with a nod towards the TV, where someone has put on the countdown from Times Square.   
“Yeah,” Andrew says, and they lapse into silence.  
Brent pulls him closer, and Andrew’s world narrows down to the little bubble they’re in. It’s just the two of them and the space between them. He can dimly hear people start the countdown in the background somewhere, but it’s nothing more than an afterthought. Brent is looking down at him, so much love and warmth in his eyes, and Andrew could get lost in this moment.  
The countdown reaches two and Brent leans in, just to pause right before their lips touch.  
“Happy New Year,” he breathes against Andrew’s lips and before Andrew can say anything in return the people around them start to cheer and Brent closes that last sliver of distance to kiss him.  
The kiss is everything. Andrew feels Brent’s lips against his own, chapped and moving slowly to coax Andrew’s lips open. Andrew lets himself fall into it. All he can focus on is the rhythm of the kiss, the movement of their lips, the toe-curling and jelly-legs-inducing feeling of Brent putting all his love into this and making sure Andrew feels it. And all Andrew can do is give it right back to him.  
Andrew feels a little drunk when they come up for air, if you can get drunk from kissing alone. The kiss didn’t take nearly as long as it felt like, and everyone is still wishing each other a happy new year.  
Andrew smiles at Brent and says, “Happy New Year to you, too.”  
“I hope I’ll get to do that for a lot more new years.” Brent smiles warmly and Andrew has to lean up to give him a quick kiss.  
“Me, too.”  
They move slightly away from each other, and Brent’s arm slips back around Andrew’s waist, so they can move around the room and exchange well-wishes with their team mates and their families.  
Sharpy is already waiting for them with a smirk when they reach him.  
“Do I have to offer you two a room?” he asks when they have wished each other a happy new year.  
“You definitely did something wrong if you could watch us,” Brent quips back with a smirk of his own.  
“It was hard to miss. You were almost worse than the Kane and Toews show over there.”  
They all turn into the direction Sharpy nods to and find Jonny and Kaner in a corner, Jonny intensely explaining something to Kaner, who’s nodding along with a fond smile.  
“How long has that been going on?” Brent asks.  
Sharpy shrugs. “Before midnight, I think.”  
“God.”  
“If we ever turn that bad I’m telling Duncs to shoot us,” Andrew says, almost morbidly fascinated by how obviously Jonny and Kaner are in love. The worst part is that neither of them seems to realise that it’s a mutual thing.  
“Agreed,” Brent says.  
“I’ll probably shoot myself first,” Duncs says from behind them. “Those two are already using up all of my patience.”  
“Fair enough,” Andrew concedes.  
“We’ll get Bollig to do it instead,” Brent says, which is probably a good idea, since Bollig doesn’t put up with Andrew’s shit in the first place.  
“For all of our sanity, I hope we will never get to that point,” Sharpy says, shuddering a little exaggeratedly.

They go home not long after, because New Year’s Eve or not, they still have to leave for New York the next day. In bed, Andrew rolls over into Brent’s waiting arms, and lets out a sigh as he snuggles up to him.  
“I’m glad we actually talked about our feelings,” he says, eyes already closed.  
He can feel the rumble of Brent’s chuckle in his chest, before he says, “Me too, babe.”  
“Can you imagine if we were still dancing around each other?” Andrew shudders a little as he says it.  
“You think I’d still try to convince you of my qualities, even as a single father?”  
“I know you would,” Andrew says, full of conviction, because if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s Brent’s feelings and his own. “Besides, even if you were too preoccupied with Carter, you couldn’t get rid of me that easily.”  
He can hear the smile in Brent’s voice when he says, “Well, at least one of us has to have some brains.”  
Andrew laughs into Brent’s chest as he moves closer, and they exchange a last “I love you.” before they relax and fall asleep.


	2. I Wanna Be With You Everyday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road trip out west blends directly into the almost three weeks of the Olympic break, and Andrew is just really glad when they come home and he can put his bag in a corner and lie down on the couch. Brent has other ideas though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a lot to everyone who read and gave kudos so far!
> 
> Chapter Title and lyrics quoted in this chapter are all from "I'm Ready" by Bryan Adams

It’s mid-January when they return from a short road trip, and find Liz in the kitchen arguing with her boyfriend on the phone. 

“You knew what my job meant for my working hours,” she’s saying as  they enter the kitchen. “You don’t get to complain about it now. I _like_ this job, I’m not giving it up for you.” She listens to his reply for a moment, and rolls her eyes, before she says, “I can’t do this right now. Call me again when you’ve gotten over yourself.”

“Everything okay?” Brent asks.

“Yeah, no, it’s just my boyfriend being an idiot. He’s complaining about how I don’t have time for him anymore, and how he had this great date planned for next week, even though I’ve been telling him for ages that I’ll have to be here.” Liz sighs heavily, and shakes her head. “He’ll get over it,” she says. “And if he can’t deal, I don’t care to be honest. I’m not giving up my job for him.”

“You can tell us if he’s any trouble,” Brent says. “I know we’re technically your employers, but you’re part of the family, we’re here if you need us.”

“Us and an entire professional hockey team,” Andrew adds.

Liz smiles at that, already a bit more upbeat than before. “I’m sure Brandon Saad and Ben Smith can be very intimidating if they want to.”

Andrew laughs. “We can use them as the first line of defence, Leddy can be next, and then we start rolling out the bigger guns.”

“Who’s last?” Brent asks. “Bollig?”

“No, his face is too nice. It’s you, Duncs and Sharpy of course,” Andrew explains patiently.

“Why us?”

“Well, Sharpy is threatening in a charming way, and you and Duncs can back him up with that D-man mind reading thing of yours.”

“What about Jonathan Toews?” Liz asks. She’s full on grinning now, and Andrew is glad to see that they managed to cheer her up.

“Jonny comes before us three,” Brent says, grinning, too. “He’ll just pull a Captain Serious on him and tell him to be better.”

And Liz is laughing now, which Andrew definitely counts as a win for them. She smiles warmly at them and says, “Thanks guys. I needed that.”

“Anytime,” Andrew says. “And Brent was serious, you can tell us if you need our help.”

“I’ll try to remember if I ever need it,” Liz says, right before she lets out a huge yawn. “But I’m going to bed now, while I still can. I’m sure Carter will have me up again before long. Good night!”

“Good night!” Andrew and Brent reply, and Liz leaves the kitchen and goes up to her bedroom.

“We should sleep, too,” Brent says, just as Andrew yawn s. “Come on, we’re both tired.”

Andrew just nods, and follows him up the stairs.

 

The road trip out west blends directly into the almost three weeks of the Olympic break, and Andrew is just really glad when they come home and he can put his bag in a corner and lie down on the couch. He loves his job, and he wouldn’t want to change it for anything in the world, but every day he can relax is still a good day. Brent smiles and sits down next to him, pulling Andrew’s head into his lap.

“Tired, babe?” he asks, while he threads his fingers through Andrew’s hair.

“Just happy we get three weeks at home,” Andrew says. He smiles up at Brent who smiles knowingly back. They had discussed using the break to take a vacation, and going somewhere warmer than Chicago in February, but had ultimately decided to stay. Carter’s been grabbing things , and babbling at them when they talk to him. They’re both charmed, and Andrew’s phone is filled with photos of Brent playing with Carter,  looking completely enamoured with their son.

 

They go out to look at dogs during the first week of the break. Bicks had readily recommended a shelter when Andrew had brought it up with him, and they decide to start there . They take Carter along, because whichever dog they’re going to end up with , it’s going to have to be child-friendly.

The young woman behind the shelter’s reception desk   welcomes them warmly.

“We’re looking to adopt a dog,” Andrew explains. “Not too large, and child-friendly if possible.”

She nods and smiles. “I’m sure one of our dogs will fit in with you. If you’ll follow me?” she leads them through to the kennels, and starts showing them round.

They see a lot of very cute dogs, and some truly adorable puppies, who seem to take an immediate liking to Andrew, but none of them strike either of them as right. That is until they meet Charlie. Charlie has a bit of an attitude, that much is clear from the start, but it’s charming. He sizes  up Andrew when he crouches down to let him sniff at his hand, and allows him to scratch him behind the ears. Brent crouches next to him to do the same, and when Charlie sees Carter he sniffs him curiously. Carter babbles happily at him and grabs some of his fur. Charlie stills and Andrew holds his breath for a moment, ready to intervene if he has to, but Charlie just shakes his head to get Carter’s fist off and noses him playfully.

Brent lets out a disbelieving laugh. “He’s you in dog form,” he says to Andrew, a small grin on his face. “All attitude but no bite.”

“I’ve got plenty of bite,” Andrew shoots back, but it’s more the principle of the thing, because he can definitely see where Brent’s coming from. He turns to the lady from the front desk and asks, “Can we maybe get to know him a little?”

“Yes, definitely,” she says with a smile. “If you want to you can go for a walk together as well, to see how you guys get along.”

“That would be awesome,” Andrew says with a broad smile.

They don’t take Charlie  with them that day, but they do stop by PetSmart on their way home to get everything they need for him. They just know he’s perfect for them.

 

The plan is to laze around the house the rest of the time and watch their teammates kill it in Sochi, but Brent surprises Andrew with a short trip to Colorado for their anniversary. Nancy comes down from Kelowna to take care of Carter while they’re gone, and all of a sudden Andrew is looking at a couple of days in Colorado with no parenting duties, and his boyfriend all to himself.

Brent has rented a cabin for them, small and cosy, and romantic and Andrew kind of loves it.

They start the day of their anniversary sleeping in and having breakfast in bed. Later they take a long walk through the snow, wrapped around each other and perfectly happy to let their feet carry them wherever they want to.

When they get back to their cabin, Brent bans Andrew from the kitchen and makes them dinner. Andrew gets a fire going in the fireplace and sits down at the breakfast bar to watch Brent in the kitchen. They joke and talk and it could be any other evening they’ve spent together, if not for the way Brent seems to make a special effort to make everything as nice as possible. Andrew loves it. His own plans had involved getting Brent breakfast in bed and making him dinner before having some amazing sex, hopefully, but it looks like Brent has most of that covered already.

The smell of whatever Brent is cooking is amazing, and Andrew’s stomach is rumbling by the time they sit down to eat. Brent smiles softly at him and hooks his foot around Andrew’s underneath the table.

“I hope you’ll like it,” he says, indicating the food.

Andrew grins back. “If it tastes the way it smells, I’m definitely going to.

They eat in companionable silence, and then they stay right where they are and continue their conversation where it left off. But Brent seems a little nervous now, as if there’s something he wants to say but isn’t quite ready to. Andrew narrows his eyes at him, and when there’s a short lull in their conversation, he entwines their legs even more under the table, and says, “There’s something you want to say, isn’t there?”

Brent smiles “Is it that obvious?”

“It is to me.”

Brent nods. He takes Andrew’s hand and takes a deep breath. “So, I know it’s early to ask, but I’ve been thinking about us, and… it’s not like we’ve taken things especially slow since we got Carter, so I’ve decided that there’s no time like now.” He’s looking into Andrew’s eyes now, intense and focused, and Andrew thinks he knows what’s going to come next, but he’s not going to get his hopes up before he actually hears the words. “What I want to ask is,” Brent says finally, “do you want to marry me?” 

Andrew’s face contorts into a broad grin and he nods eagerly. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I do.”

For a second Brent looks almost unbelieving, but then he smiles just as broadly as Andrew does.

“So,” Andrew says, “do I get to kiss you as well?”

Brent laughs. “Not across the table.”

Andrew shrugs and gets up, never letting go of Brent’s hand. “It’s not like we can’t change that,” he says as he comes around to Brent’s side of the table.

Brent raises an eyebrow and pushes his chair back to make room for Andrew, who easily slips into his lap. He smirks down at Brent. “See?” he says.

“So where’s that kiss you were talking about?” Brent asks back, eyebrow still raised, and Andrew doesn’t need to be challenged again.

He starts slow but deliberate, and the angle is perfect for him to take control of the kiss. But Brent wouldn’t be Brent if he just let Andrew do what he wants, so he fights back and somehow manages to deepen the kiss all on his own. Andrew grinds down in retaliation, and Brent makes a sound in the back of his throat. Andrew repeats the movement and this time Brent breaks away with a gasp.

His pupils are blown when he looks at Andrew, and his voice is more of a rasp when he says, “We should move this to the bedroom.”

Andrew nods and moves off his lap, pulling Brent up and along with him.

They kiss against a wall, and against the door of the bedroom, and by the time they finally make it to the bed, Andrew is eager to get both of them out of their clothes. Luckily for him Brent agrees wholeheartedly.

 

Andrew wakes up to sunlight streaming in through the window, and Brent watching him. He has his head propped up on one elbow and Andrew has to look up a bit to see him, but when their eyes meet they both smile softly. Brent leans down to give him a close mouthed kiss, and says “I didn’t even give you your ring last night.”

Andrew chuckles. “We were kinda occupied.”

“That we were,” Brent says. “Still, we could have made time.” It’s only then that Andrew sees the box he’s holding in his free hand, and his breath catches in his throat a little. Brent smiles, and pulls his arm out from under his head so he lies down again, and has both hands free. He opens the box, and grasps Andrew’s right hand from where it’s resting between them. He slides the ring onto Andrew’s finger, where it sits perfectly and Andrew feels so happy he could burst.

 

Andrew can’t stop staring at the ring all the way back home. It’s a simple silver band, not too broad and without and adornments . He thinks it’s beautiful. Brent is wearing a matching one, a little broader than Andrew’s, but otherwise the same. Andrew has already posted a picture to his Instagram and sent another one around the team group text. There has been some mild chirping from the guys, and a bunch of supportive comments from fans, that Andrew saw before he put away his phone again. His mom had been ecstatic when he called, and Andrew is a little afraid of what that might mean. Nancy already knew, Brent had admitted a bit sheepishly. He had told her when he had asked her if she could take care of Carter for the weekend.

Nancy is waiting for them when they reach the house, an expectant smile on her face. When Brent grins and nods at her she wraps them in a hug.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says.

Liz sends them a selfie of her giving them a broad grin and a thumbs-up when they break the news to her.

_How’s the boyfriend?_ Andrew texts back, which she replies to with a shrug emoji.

_Already complaining about my work hours again. If he keeps this up he won’t be the boyfriend much longer._

_Call us if you need back-up._

_I can deal with my boyfriend._

_Just offering ;)_

_Thanks :)_

 

They watch the gold medal game from the comfort of their couch with Carter in Brent’s lap and a freshly moved in Charlie next to Andrew, and damn it’s nice to watch Canada take the gold again. They throw each other matching grins and resist a victory dance.

 

Sharpy insists on throwing a joint Olympic Participation-Engagement party as soon as everyone is back in Chicago. Brent rolls his eyes a little when he announces it, but it’s Sharpy and they know it’s easier to go along with it. It’s a blast, even Kaner seems to be genuinely happy, even though it’s possible that that’s because of Jonny, who doesn’t leave his side all evening.

Of course there’s questions about the wedding already, even though they haven’t even narrowed the date down any further than “summer” so far. The only question they can answer at this point is the “where”, because that hadn’t even been much of a question. Andrew likes Belleville, he grew up there, but Kelowna is where they spend most of their summers, and the house there is a really beautiful spot for a wedding. Apart from that Andrew is almost certain that their mothers have already started planning about five-hundred things Brent and Andrew haven’t even thought of yet.

 

The season grinds on and between hockey and wedding planning with their mothers (because they have to make a lot of decisions apparently) they barely get to take a breath. They make the playoffs, and bring up the schedule with Liz.

She shrugs and says, “I’ll deal with it. It’ll be just like any other road trip where I stay with Carter while you’re gone.”

“We just wanted to bring it up, since there’s so many variables. We might finish a series early and get more time at home than expected, or we might not,” Brent says.

“Seriously, it’s fine. We’ve been through this when I took the job, remember?” Liz smiles. “I’m just moving in for the time being and you won’t get rid of me, even when you’re home.”

Andrew laughs. “As if we’d try to get rid of you.”

“See?” Liz grins.

“Okay,” Brent relents with a smile.

 

They have to start against the Blues and it’s about as much of a shit show as Andrew expects it to be. Games against the Blues are always bad, but playoff games against the Blues are a different kind of beast.

Brent checks Backes badly in the head and they all know that this is going to have consequences. It’s the last thing they need right now, even though Andrew can’t say he can fault Brent much for hitting Backes in the first place. He really hates the Blues. He shares a look with Duncs while they’re still on the bench. They don’t have to say a word to know that they’re going to deal with this together.

When it’s finally over after the Blues win it in OT , they find Brent on the stationary bike, still angry. They wordlessly take the two bikes on each side of him. Most of the guys are giving them a wide berth, even though Andrew can see Jonny looking like he wants to come over. But Kaner says something to him, and he doesn’t do it.

Duncs is already talking to Brent in an undertone. “I know it was a bad hit, and you’re pissed right now. But you can’t change what happened,” Duncs is saying. “It’s hard, but you have to calm down, Seabsieboy.”

Brent doesn’t reply but he slows down a bit, which Andrew counts as a win.

“You have to believe in us,” he adds. “Whatever they’ll do, you know we got this. It’s a team effort, babe.”

He can hear Brent huff, as if to say that he knows that, but he keeps slowing down and Andrew can see his face relaxing a bit into something more like frustrated resignation.

“I just don’t want to be the guy responsible,” he says finally, and this time it’s Andrew who huffs.

“You’re not. Whatever happens, you’re not. There’s like a million things that could have gone differently.”

“If it hadn’t been you, it could have been me, or Shawzy, or Bollig, or even Jonny. It’s hockey, these things happen, and we don’t like that, but it’s not your damn fault,” Duncs says. “We’ll deal with it, and we’ll kick their asses, because they should damn well know that our success doesn’t hinge on one guy.”

“You calling me replaceable now?” Brent asks with the barest hint of a smirk.

“Nah,” Duncs says easily. “I prefer your ugly mug on a team with me. It’s much easier to work with.”

Brent lets out a laugh at that and weak as it is, Andrew is glad to hear it.

“See it like this, you get to tell us all the things we did badly that you saw from the press box,” he says. “You can make us better by helping us that way.”

“The mutt has a point,” Duncs says. “It’s not like you can’t help us at all.”

Brent looks at Andrew, who can see the last of the tension drain out of him and they share a soft smile.

 

Brent earns himself a three-game suspension, but they push the series to Game 6 and win it with Brent back on the ice with them. Andrew is almost willing to feel bad for the Blues at that point.

 

Their next series is against the Wild with home ice advantage so they get to spend time with their families at home, which is just as well, because Andrew is seriously missing their son at this point.

The Wild is the Wild, and Andrew thoroughly enjoys kicking their asses. Or rather he would if he could do the actually ass kicking himself. But Clayton fucking Stoner seems not to want to give him the satisfaction. Andrew leaves the ice early in Game 1 with pain throbbing in his ankle, and he knows it’s bad. He’d be angry if he wasn’t in pain, but like this all he can do is lie down and let the doctors do their thing.

There’s not a lot they can do actually, and so he gets to take off his equipment and watches the rest of the game sitting on a stretcher while he ices his ankle.

They win it, which is good, and Brent finds him afterwards, already done with his cool-down exercises, and wraps Andrew in a one armed hug.

“How bad is it?” he asks.

“They’re doing another check up tomorrow to make sure, but I’m out a few games,” Andrew says with a sigh, and leans his head against Brent’s shoulder.

Brent gives him a squeeze. “We’ll deal. It’s more important that you get healthy so you can come back and help us. Besides, you can just help us from the press box.”

Andrew chuckles at his own advice being parroted back at him. “You know I will.”

“See?” Brent smiles and looks up as Dr. Terry comes in. “Can I take him?”

“Yes. See that he doesn’t put weight on his foot and come in tomorrow so we can have a better look,” Dr. Terry says.

Brent nods. “Got it, Doc.”

The Doc hands them a pair of crutches and they leave.

“I talked to Q,” Brent says on the way to the locker room. “He said to take you home and not show my face until tomorrow. And I already texted Liz to let her know. And Duncs says Kelly Rae will take us home.”

“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?” Andrew says, and Brent smiles.

“I try,” he says easily, as he helps Andrew sit down in his stall.

They manage to get Andrew mostly cleaned up, or at least enough so he doesn’t stink too badly. He struggles a little to get back into his slacks, but he manages, and Brent grabs his stuff as they walk out. They’re the last ones to go, but Kelly Rae doesn’t seem to mind.

“Thanks for waiting,” Brent says as he gives her a quick hug.

“It’s fine. I wouldn’t want you guys to be stranded here.”

 

Liz is already waiting for them when they get home. She looks worried as she holds the door open and lets them in.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

Andrew smiles at her. “I’ll be out a couple games, but I’ll be fine.”

She releases a breath. “Thank god.”

“I just want to go to bed right now. I’m exhausted,” Andrew says, failing to suppress a yawn.

“You didn’t even play the whole game, babe,” Brent teases with a smile, but Andrew can see that he’s exhausted, too. It’s impressive that he’s not falling asleep on his feet, and Andrew suspects that he would be doing just that if Andrew wasn’t injured.

“Being injured is hard work,” Andrew says mildly.

Brent chuckles, and then he yawns, too.

“Yeah, the two of you are going to bed,” Liz says, herding them towards the stairs. “And I don’t want to see you again before you absolutely have to get up.”

“Aye aye, Sir,” Andrew says, raising one of his crutches in a mock salute. He narrowly misses the hallway mirror, and hastily lowers the crutch again before he actually knocks something over.

“You need help getting upstairs, babe?” Brent asks, and god, what did Andrew do to deserve this man in his life?

He shakes his head, mostly for Brent’s sake, because he doesn’t think it would be a good idea to let him help in his current state of exhaustion.

He’s slow up the stairs. It’s difficult to navigate them on crutches, but he manages. He changes into his pyjamas and as soon as his head hits the pillow he’s asleep.

 

Breakfast the next morning is relaxed. They had woken up refreshed, and while Andrew’s ankle is still throbbing with pain, he does feel a little better. Brent helped him into the shower, and made sure he didn’t slip. Actually washing themselves was awkward like this, and they could probably have found an easier way, but neither of them was quite willing to stop touching and to move a bit further apart.

Later Brent had helped him down the stairs and sat him down at the breakfast bar while he fetched coffee and food and fed Charlie.

They’re still sitting like that when someone rings the bell. They exchange a look, but neither of them is expecting anyone. Andrew shrugs, and Brent gets up.

Andrew has to crane his head to see the front door, but he’s curious and so he gets to see the entire thing first hand.

In front of the door is a guy. He looks to be the type of guy who likes to pretend he’s tougher than he actually is. Andrew can’t see Brent’s expression but he’s almost sure that it involves a raised eyebrow.

“Can I help you?” Brent asks.

“I’m here for Liz.”

“And you are?”

“Her boyfriend.”

“Liz is working. Which you surely know. So you should just go now and not waste our time.”

Andrew doesn’t think the guy is going to back down that easily, but whatever look’s on Brent’s face it must be terrifying (and potentially very hot, Andrew thinks because he has his priorities straight), because the guy seems to shrink in on himself, and quickly says, “Okay, just tell her I was here.”

“I will,” Brent says and closes the door without waiting for a reply.

He has to pass Andrew to get back to his seat, and he presses an absentminded kiss to his shoulder as he walks past.

Andrew watches him for a moment, but when Brent doesn’t come forth with anything, he says, “Penny for your thoughts?”

Brent startles a bit, but he shakes it off quickly. “I was just thinking about that guy, you know?”

“What about him?” Andrew asks, one eyebrow raised. “He’s clearly an idiot.”

“Yeah no, not that. Even though he is an idiot. I was just thinking that it’s a little weird for him to show up here.”

“Want me to talk to Liz later?”

Brent nods. “That might be better. I mean, I don’t want to be an asshole, but it does concern me to see him here.”

Andrew smiles reassuringly. “It’s okay, I get it. I’ll talk to her.”

“Thanks.” Brent smiles, too and the rest of their breakfast passes without any more incidents.

 

Andrew’s second examination results in him being told to stay home for at least the rest of the series. “Nothing’s broken or torn, but you’re going to need two weeks to be able to use your ankle without problems again, six weeks until it’s back to where it’s supposed to be,” the doctor tells him. “I know it’s the playoffs, but you don’t want to risk this getting worse.”

Andrew accepts it solemnly, even though he hates to think that he’s going to be out that long. They wouldn’t tell him to stay home if they thought there was any use to him playing. Brent takes him home after they’re done with practice, and gives him a long, hard kiss before he leaves again to rejoin their teammates. Andrew hopes it’s enough of a good luck charm.

He tells Liz about her boyfriend’s visit that afternoon and she’s absolutely mortified.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t even know he knew where exactly I was working.”

“I think Brent chased him off for now,” Andrew says. “But it would be better if he didn’t turn up here again, I think.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”

“Then we’re fine. And I know I’ve said this before, but if he gives you any problems, don’t hesitate to tell us. We’ll help.”

Liz smiles. “I know. And I definitely will, if I need your help.”

 

The guys come out roaring and beat the Wild in Game 2, but drop game 3 and 4 in Minnesota. Andrew gets to watch from the press box as they eke out a 2-1 win back home and then he sees them fight through game 6 to win the series, and he thanks the hockey gods, because they’re not out of the playoffs yet.

He gets a couple of days with Brent before they start playing the Western Conference Final against the Kings, and it’s a good thing because he’s starting to go crazy. He has Carter and Charlie, and it’s awesome that he gets to spend time with them, but he also watched his teammates and…it just itches under his skin to get back out there and play. He feels the nervous energy building up in him, especially since he’s not allowed to run it off or anything.

Brent takes one look at him when he gets home and from the way his hands wrap around Andrew’s wrists Andrew knows that he has seen right through him. And he knows Brent’s tired and needs to relax before playing again, but when he kisses Andrew hard in their bedroom that evening and takes control, he doesn’t protest. He feels a bit selfish about it, but he needs this and as long as Brent is offering he’s going to take it. It’s the first night Andrew has no trouble falling asleep since his injury.

 

The doctors reevaluate him and there’s finally a silver lining when they tell him that it won’t be long now.

Andrew gets to come back for Game 3 against the Kings, and even though it’s right in time for them to lose both games in LA, he’s happy. The first time his skates touch ice again, he almost laughs out loud. Brent smiles at him indulgently and knocks their shoulders together when they’re on their way back to the locker room.

“Glad to have you back,” he says, and Andrew just gives him a happy grin. It has to be enough because he doesn’t think he has the words to explain himself right now, but he thinks Brent gets it.

 

They lose five minutes into OT in Game 7 and it leaves a bitter taste in Andrew’s mouth. He knows it was unlikely to repeat. Hell, he knows he should be proud that they even got this far, and he _is_ , but it’s also disappointing. He takes a look around the locker room and he sees the same disappointment in the faces of the others, and it kind of breaks his heart a little. He watches Brent, who looks tired and resigned, and is having a hushed conversation with Duncs, and he realises that no, he doesn’t want to see his friends like this, and gets to work.

Andrew knows he’s got a reputation as a pest and he definitely deserves it. But what few people realise is that it also means he knows exactly which buttons to push when and how. You don’t go around annoying guys if you haven’t figured them out first. And so Andrew uses his knowledge not to annoy but to cheer up. It’s a bit like dominoes because it only takes a little push and he can see guys visibly relax around the room. Some need a dumb joke, some need to be told how well they did, others just need to hear that it’s not their fault. And the beautiful thing is he doesn’t even need to do it all himself, because as soon as they catch on others are doing it, too. Brent and Duncs pick it up with the D-men, Kaner pulls Jonny out of his thoughts the way only he can, and Sharpy and Hoss start what seems like an innocent conversation about their daughters but quickly devolves into distracting everyone around them with pictures. 

By the time they get on the plane back home, they’re not any happier about the loss, but at least they’re not as much of the sad bunch Andrew saw in the locker room.

“You were amazing back there,” Brent tells him when they’re finally in the privacy of their bedroom. “I’m glad you did that.”

“I just couldn’t leave all of you like that. We can’t let our disappointment take over if we want to win it next year.”

Brent smiles a little. “So you’re already thinking about next year?”

“Of course.” Andrew nods. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t make it, and I can dwell on it, but I’ve always preferred to bounce back and try again instead.”

“I wish I could be that positive sometimes,” Brent says.

Andrew reaches out to grasp his neck. “You don’t have to be,” he says earnestly. “You’ve got me.” And to emphasise his point Andrew leans in for a kiss, because he really needs Brent to get that he means it . He has enough positivity for both of them if he needs to. He’ll catch them both if he has to.

 

They have their locker clear out day and their exit interviews and then the guys start dispersing. Some have already booked flights out of Chicago for as soon as possible, others are a bit more reluctant to leave quite yet. Brent and Andrew have a wedding to prepare, and even if there’s a lot to do before the big day, they still have two months to do it, and they decide that they can spend a few more days in Chicago before they have to leave. Liz is still around because she seems to have decided they can use  the help. It’s a good thing she is, because she knows all of Charlie’s newest hiding places for his toys and reminds them to pack the stuffed Tommy Hawk Carter has grown obsessed with recently.

Sharpy and Duncs are coming over the day before they’re supposed to leave, so neither of them suspects anything when there’s a knock on the door. Andrew goes to open, because he’s closer to the door, and finds Liz’ boyfriend standing on their door mat.

“Yes?” he says, one eyebrow raised and the guy at least has the decency to try to make nice.

“Is Liz around?” the guy asks.

“That depends on who’s asking.”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

“She’s working right now. And I’m fairly sure she told you not to come around here anymore.” Andrew gives him a very pointed look, because he knows for a fact that Liz did just that after the last time, but it seems he doesn’t want to listen to her.

“I just want to talk to her. I think I deserve a chance to clear things up in person.”

“Listen man, whatever she said to you, I’m sure she had a reason so you need to back off.”

“I think that’s still my decision to make. If she thinks I’ll just leave without fighting for her she’s wrong.” The guy’s starting to look a little angry, and Andrew gives him his best unimpressed look. He could take him in a fight, he’s fought scarier guys on the ice.

But before he can say anything a car stops in front of the house and Sharpy and Duncs get out. They take in the scene and as they come strolling up to the door, Duncs calls out, “Any problems, Mutt?”

Andrew grins and shakes his head. “Nope, this guy here was just about to leave.”

“I was not,” the guy protests. 

Andrew raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh I think you were.”

“I’m not going to leave before I talk to Liz.”

By then Sharpy and Duncs have reached the front door, and while Sharpy leans casually against the edge of the porch, Duncs takes off his sunglasses and fixes his best murder glare on the guy.

“If our friend says you’re leaving then you’re leaving,” he says in that flat voice of his that just dares people to disagree with him. Andrew has seen so many opposing hockey players cower before it, that he’s not even surprised when the guy visibly deflates.

“Yeah…right… I… I’m leaving,” he stammers, and backs off from the door, almost knocking into Sharpy, who catches him with a hand and a smile that promises trouble, and turns him in the right direction.

“I think you want to go that way,” Sharpy says easily, and the guy just nods and walks away so fast he’s almost running.

“Who was that?” Duncs asks as they enter the house.

Andrew shrugs. “Liz’ boyfriend. Or rather ex-boyfriend I gather.”

“And he just comes round here like that?” Sharpy says, one eyebrow raised.

“Not usually, and I think you guys scared him off pretty well.”

“Who did they scare off?” Brent asks. They have reached the kitchen where he’s sitting with Carter, trying to convince him to have his lunch.

“Liz’ ex,” Andrew says. “Do you guys want coffee or water?”

“Coffee,” Duncs says, and Sharpy gives a nod to say he wants one, too.

Duncs flips off the picture of Andrew on the fridge as he passes to sit down next to Brent, reaching over to ruffle Carter’s hair. It’s Brent’s favourite from the calendar Andrew gave him, and he had it printed again to put it on the fridge where it has a place of honour now. Duncs flips it off every time he’s in the kitchen.

“Oh that guy. I didn’t know she had finally broken up with him.” Brent gives up on getting any more food into Carter, because he knows full well that he’s going to be far too distracted by Duncs and Sharpy now that they’re here.

“Me neither,” Andrew says. “But from what he said she must have.”

“Good,” Brent says simply, before he passes off Carter to Duncs to put the spoon and bowl he was using into the dishwasher.

“There’s a story there, isn’t it?” Sharpy asks, observant as ever.

Brent shrugs. “He kept complaining about her work hours, apparently. And when Andrew got injured last month he turned up here and wanted to talk to her, but I sent him away.”

“Either way, I think we’re all rid of him for good now,” Andrew says. “He practically ran away just now.” He puts the mugs with coffee down in front of Duncs and Sharpy, and takes Carter from Duncs who pouts a little at him. “You got your own at home,” Andrew tells him as he sits down, and Duncs just shrugs.

Duncs and Sharpy only stay for a few hours and in that time the conversation meanders from Liz’ ex to the Stanley Cup final to Andrew’s and Brent’s wedding. Liz returns from her walk with Charlie, who sniffs at everyone and bounds off to nap after getting a couple of head scratches, and they tell her about her ex-boyfriend’s visit.

“I can’t believe he did this,” she says. “I explicitly told him that he shouldn’t dare to show his face around here again. God, why can’t men just listen?” She throws her hands up in the air, and Andrew snickers.

“You do realise you’re in a room full of men, don’t you?” he says.

Liz rolls her eyes at him. “And so? How often have I told you not to get up when you hear Carter just to find you with him?”

“She has a point,” Brent says with a grin, just to have her turn to him, one eyebrow raised pointedly.

“You’re no better than him,” she says, and this time it’s Andrew who’s grinning.

“Liz wins this one,” he says.

Liz nods. “Damn well, I do.” 

 

They go to Kelowna the next day, and immediately get sucked into wedding preparations. Nancy (and by proxy Darlene, too) needs their input on a million things, from decorations to food and wedding cakes, and it turns out to be a far busier summer than they had previously thought. They somehow fit in off-season training with Duncs, and it feels almost like a holiday some days.

One evening after Nancy has gone with them to what Andrew is sure is every flower shop in the Kelowna area, they fall into bed and Brent lets out a low growl.

“Is it too late to elope and get married by Elvis in Vegas?” he asks.

“I think they’re going to kill us and resurrect us to go through with the original plans, if we do that,” Andrew says with a sigh.

“It was worth a try.”

When Andrew turns his head to look at Brent. He has his eyes closed, but he turns his head a little and opens one eye, as if sensing that Andrew’s looking at him.

“What?” he says, opening the other eye as well and raising one eyebrow.

“Nothing.” Andrew smiles. “I was just thinking that we’re going to get married soon.”

Brent smiles back. “That we are.”

“If anyone had told me about this a year ago , I probably wouldn’t have believed them.”

“Neither would I to be honest.”

“Yeah, who raises a child together and gets married barely a year after starting to date?”

“We do.” Brent’s smile is all soft, and Andrew smiles back helplessly.

He rolls over and pushes himself up until he can climb on top of Brent and straddle his waist. For a moment they just smile at each other like that. “I’m glad we do,” Andrew says, finally, and then he bends down to kiss Brent.

It’s one of these slow kisses that they take their time with, just lips sliding against lips, and no hurry. Brent’s scent is all around Andrew, as familiar and as much a part of his life as the scratch of blades on ice at this point. It’s love and family and home, and Andrew wants nothing more but to wake up wrapped in it for the rest of his life. Brent makes a sound at the back of his throat and Andrew deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue into Brent’s mouth, and this too is familiar. There’s always new tastes to discover, the coffee Brent had for breakfast, when Andrew kisses him in the morning; the sugary sweetness of the cakes they tasted for the wedding, when Andrew kissed him after getting home; but it always comes down to something that is so fundamentally Brent , that Andrew doesn’t even have to look for it. It’s just right there.

Andrew doesn’t know how long they have kissed when they come up for air again, but it can’t have been as long as it felt. Brent looks up at him, a smile on his face and reaches up to caress Andrew’s face.

“I love you,” he says.

Andrew smiles back, leaning into the touch. “I love you, too.”

 

Andrew’s friends organise a trip to Vegas for his bachelor party. They do it right before his birthday in July, and Brent tells him goodbye with a kiss, and a “Have fun!” Carter on his arm makes grabby hands for Andrew and babbles at him, and Andrew lets him grab his finger with a smile.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he promises Carter, who tries to stuff Andrew’s finger into his mouth and pouts at him when he pulls it back.

“Try not to embarrass yourself too much,” Brent says, smirking.

Andrew grins. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

Brent laughs and after a last quick kiss Andrew disappears through airport security.

 

Saader is a sneaky bastard who knows Andrew too well and so he loses his phone to him as soon as they all meet up in Vegas. He looks smug when he sees Andrew’s pout as he puts it into his own pocket.

“I’m taking everything back I ever said,” Andrew says. “You’re not my favourite anymore. Leddy is my new favourite.”

“I’m fairly sure Seabs is your favourite,” Leddy says deadpan.

Andrew rolls his eyes at him. “Well duh. I was talking about my favourite other than Brent.” And because he can see that Bollig is opening his mouth already he immediately adds. “Or Carter for that matter.”

“You just keep saying that,” Saader chimes in, because he’s actually an asshole. Andrew does the mature thing and sticks out his tongue at him.

They have fun in Vegas, they go on a trip to the Grand Canyon and hang out by the pool of their hotel and Saader makes sure that none of them get too drunk or waste too much money on gambling, and Andrew is glad to be here with his guys. But at the same time he can’t help but miss Brent and Carter. It’s a great trip, and he’s grateful that they organised this, but he can’t help but think that he’s missing out on time with his family right now, which is dumb of course , because he literally has the rest of his life with them. 

Still it only takes until their second evening in Vegas for Saader to take pity on him and hand him his phone while no one is looking.

“I’ll distract the others, you call Seabs. I’m sure he misses you, too,” he says.

Andrew shoots him a thankful smile and quickly vanishes out of sight from their friends to a quiet corner so he can call Brent.

Brent picks up at the second ring, and his voice is fond when he says hello.

“You must be missing me a lot if you got Saader to crack and let you call me,” he says.

Andrew smiles even though Brent can’t see it. “I think he felt sorry for me. I might have to reevaluate him not being my favourite anymore.”

“I thought I was your favourite.”

“Well you’re my most favourite favourite.”

“That’s good to hear.” He can hear the smile in Brent’s voice, and he’s really glad Saader did this for him.

“How are things on your end?”

“Carter and Charlie both miss you, they keep looking for you, I think. Whenever they remember to at least.”

“And you?”

“Eh, I’m glad I’m getting a few days off from you.”

Andrew doesn’t squawk indignantly, but it’s a close call. Instead he says, “See if I marry you with that kind of attitude.”

“What? You backing down from something?” Brent is definitely grinning now, and Andrew lets out a laugh.

“Hell no. Not for anything in the world.”

“Good. Now go back to the others and have fun with them. We’ll be waiting for you at home.”

“I’ll see you when I get back then.”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking forward to it. See you soon.”

“See you soon.”

And with that they both hang up, and Andrew takes a deep breath and doesn’t hide his smile when he walks back to their booth. Saader is still sitting there on his own, and he smiles when he takes Andrew’s phone back and puts it back into his pocket.

“Better?” he asks, and Andrew nods.

“Yeah. Much better.”

 

Andrew gets to fly back two days later and Brent and Carter come to pick him up from the airport. Brent welcomes him with a hug and a quick peck on the lips.

Andrew smiles and turns to Carter, who is beaming at him and reaching for him. Andrew takes him off Brent’s arm and is about to say hello when Carter crows a happy “Dada” and Andrew is just stunned into silence.

He looks at Brent and says, “Did he just…?”

Brent has the fondest smile on his face, but there’s also wonder in his eyes when he looks at them. “Yes he did.”

And Andrew has to grin so broadly it hurts his cheeks.

 

They get a few days together and then Duncs whisks Brent away for his own bachelor trip. He has managed to keep it under such tight wraps , that Andrew doesn’t even have an inkling of where they’re going and what they might be doing.

But unlike Andrew, Brent gets to keep his phone and sends a few “Miss you”s and “Had fun today, not the same without you”s. Andrew smiles at all of them and texts back the latest picture of Carter curled up for a nap with Charlie.

Andrew uses the time without Brent to organise their honeymoon. They had picked the destination together but it’s Andrew’s task to organise the rest. In turn Brent got to do the ring shopping while Andrew was gone. Everything he ends up picking is Carter-approved even though he’s not going to come along, because he gets to stay with Andrew’s parents instead. By the time Brent comes back home everything is done and Andrew is pretty pleased with himself.

 

The last week before the wedding passes faster than Andrew can blink, and it seems like his birthday was just a few days ago when all of a sudden he’s driving to the airport to pick up his family .  The last days before the  big day pass in a whirlwind of last minute organising and worrying about a million little thing that have already been anticipated and solved by their mothers, because apparently mothers are magic. 

(Both Nancy and Darlene laugh when he tells them that. “Of course we are. How did you think I managed to raise three sons?” his own mom says, patting his cheek. And yeah, fair point.)

The day of the wedding comes and Andrew barely recognises their garden anymore. Under their moms’ joint supervision it has transformed into something that actually looks like a wedding is going to take place here. They left the decorations mostly to them because neither Brent nor Andrew has much of an eye for it. It was a good decision , Andrew thinks as he’s standing in the kitchen with his breakfast coffee, looking out at it.

Brent comes up from behind, wrapping his arms around Andrew’s waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder. He presses a kiss to the side of Andrew’s neck and says, “You ready for the big day?”

“As ready as I can be,” Andrew says, smiling and leaning into Brent. “Are you?”

“As ready as I can be,” Brent echoes.

It’s still early and they get to have a fairly relaxed breakfast together before they get Carter out of bed and fed and before chaos descends on them in the form of family and friends.

It’s not like either of them needs a ton of time to get ready, but in their endless wisdom their mothers insisted to include that in the planning. As it happened so often over the past weeks and months they were exactly right because Andrew can’t seem to get his hair to look good. Bollig and Leddy joke about it as they watch him. But Saader catches his hand when he reaches up to muss it all up again.

“It’s fine,” he says mildly. “You look great. Besides, I think you could turn up in nothing but boxers with your hair sticking up in all directions and he would still marry you on the spot.”

The last part is said with a smile that Andrew returns helplessly, because he knows he would definitely do just that if the situation was reversed. He keeps his hands away from his hair and sits down on them for good measure, which earns him a snicker from Leddy and a “Real mature, Mutt.” from Bollig. But they can suck it, it’s not like they’re about to get married.

Besides, it’s not like Andrew can sit still in the first place, and soon he is back to pacing around the room while they’re waiting for things to start. It’s not helping with his jitters either, but at least it gives him something to do and burns some of his nervous energy.

Outside in the garden , he can hear their guests arriving, and he has to take a deep breath because the actual ceremony is fast approaching now and it does nothing to calm him down.

 

And then Andrew’s mom enters the room and Leddy and the Brandons leave to get into position for the ceremony.

“You’re nervous,” his mom says, patting his shoulder and smoothing down the lapels of his suit. “But that’s to be expected.”

Andrew smiles a bit shakily, and his mom smiles back.

“I’m so proud of you,” she says. “I’ve watched you and Brent and Carter together , and you have grown so much. For all that I worried, you’ve shown how responsible you really are.”

“Thanks mom.” Andrew hugs her, cautious not to mess up their clothes. “But I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t taught me so much.”

“I may have raised you, but the rest you did all on your own,” she says, but he can see that she’s happy about the compliment.

“It’s probably time we went down, right?”

She nods and takes the arm he offers her and they go downstairs.

There had been quite a few discussions about this part of the wedding. Whether one of them would wait at the altar or not, or if there was any giving away to be done. In the end they had decided that they’d both walk in from opposite sites and walk down the aisle together, behind their moms. It’s a bit unusual maybe, and both Nancy and Darlene had refused at first because they didn’t want to take the spotlight from them at their wedding, but they had insisted and in the end they had managed to convince both of them.

 

The music starts and Andrew and his mom walk towards where the guests are seated already, a hush falling over them as they crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the grooms. He can see Brent coming towards them from the opposite side with Nancy next to him, and it’s not quite real, he thinks he has to pinch himself before he can believe it.

They stop at the end of the aisle, and their moms exchange hugs and kisses on their cheeks, but Andrew can’t tear his eyes away from Brent, who’s right in front of him, smiling. Their eyes meet, and Andrew finally can believe it. Brent offers him his hand and Andrew takes it and then they walk down the aisle towards the front. Andrew’s brothers, the Brandons and Leddy are lined up on one side of the dais, while the other is occupied by Duncs, Sharpy, Jonny and Brent’s brother with Carter on his arm.

They walk up the steps and with a last squeeze of his hand Brent lets go so they can stand opposite each other.

They had decided to keep the ceremony simple, neither of them had wanted to divert from the usual vows. They didn’t feel like they had to state anything past that, they didn’t need to make a big show out of things they already knew.

“Do you, Brent Seabrook take-” the officiant is saying when Carter moves on Keith’s arm, reaching out towards them and saying “Dadda!”

There’s chuckling from the audience and Keith looks a bit mortified, but Brent just smiles as he turns and takes Carter from his brother. Carter however has his own ideas, and leans away from Brent to try and get to Andrew. Andrew laughs as Brent hands him over with an amused smile. He settles Carter on his arm where he calms down immediately, and looks around at everyone as if to say “Please go on.”

The officiant smiles, too, and picks up where he left of.

“Do you, Brent Seabrook, take Andrew Shaw as your lawfully wedded husband?”

Brent smiles a beautiful soft smile. “I do.”

“Do you, Andrew Shaw, take Brent Seabrook as your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do,” Andrew says, returning Brent’s smile.

“Please present the rings.”

Duncs steps up with a small box, and they exchange their rings. It’s a bit awkward for Andrew, since he still has an armful of Carter and can only use his left hand, but Brent helps him out and he manages to put the ring on his finger without a hitch.

“By the power of your love and commitment to each other, and by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss now.”

The smile Brent gives Andrew when they step closer to each other is brilliant, and Andrew knows that his own must rival it, but then Brent reaches out and takes his face into both of his hands and kisses him. Had Andrew wasted any time on trying to imagine this kiss it would probably have been similar to this, soft and sweet and giving him butterflies in his stomach. It feels like home, he realises, and he smiles into it, because of how happy it makes him.

 

There’s the speeches that their friends use to chirp them about hopefully not getting any mushier now, and keeping things professional around the team, and then there’s food and cake that they really struggle to keep away from Carter, who seems intent on making a mess with it. Andrew ends up feeding the cake to Brent simply because it’s more convenient.

And then it’s time for their wedding dance. Nancy whisks Carter away from them and they walk onto the dance floor. Neither of them is much of a dancer, but Brent has said he knew just the song and had insisted on surprising Andrew. And because Andrew trusts him, he had seen no reason not to let him pick it.

Andrew has to smile when he recognises it. It’s hopelessly romantic, but it’s perfect. They sway more than they dance and Andrew closes his eyes to let the lyrics wash over him.

 

_I'd like to see you, thought I'd let you know_

_I wanna be with you everyday_

_Cause I've got a feeling that's beginning to grow_

_And there's only one thing I can say_

_I'm ready - to love you_

_I'm ready - to hold you_

_I'm ready - I'm ready_

_Ready as I'm gonna be_

_She left me a long note when she left me here_

_Told me that love was hard to find_

_But baby it's easy and I'll make it clear_

_That there's only one thing on my mind_

_I'm ready - to love you_

_I'm ready - to hold you_

_I'm ready - I'm ready_

_Ready as I'm gonna be_

 

After that comes the fun part, where everyone gets to drink and dance and talk. Andrew dances with Brent and with his mother and with Brent’s mother and with Carter, and he can’t stop smiling through any of it.

There’s still a warm smile on his face when he sits down to have some water and watches their friends dancing with their wives or girlfriends for a while, and snickers a little at Jonny and Kaner having an actual dance off at the edge of the dance floor, all smiles and jokes.

Brent pulls him out of his thoughts when he sits down next to him and wraps an arm around him. He has lost his jacket somewhere, and his bow tie is hanging open around his neck, the top buttons of his shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Andrew snuggles into him, idly thinking that it would be really easy to turn his head and nose at Brent’s throat.

“My mom said that they’re going to leave soon,” Brent says. “They wanted to get going while Carter’s still awake so we can say goodbye since we’re leaving so early tomorrow.”

Andrew nods. “He’s gonna be so disappointed when we’re not there for breakfast.”

“He’ll get over it once he realises that his grandparents are going to spoil him rotten.” 

“By the time we’re back it’ll be ‘Grandma this’ and ‘grandpa that’,” Andrew says with a grin. “We’re never gonna be his favourites again.”

Brent chuckles. “It’s a lost cause.”

Nancy catches their eye from the porch, waving at them to come over to the house.

“Here we go,” Andrew says, as they get up and walk across the lawn to her.

Carter seems a little sleepy when they walk into the living room where all the kids are camped out, but his face lights up when he sees them. Brent picks him up from where he’s been playing with an equally sleepy Colton, and smiles at him.

“Hey Shortcake,” he says. “You’re going to stay with your grandparents for a bit, while we’re gone. So we just wanted to say goodbye.”

Andrew leans in from the side to say, “You’ll have to be good for us, okay? And we’re leaving Charlie to keep you company, too.”

Carter babbles at them in reply.

Brent carries him out into the hallway, but when he tries to hand him over to Andrew’s mom, Carter scrunches up his face and struggles to get back to his dad. Andrew steels himself for the inevitable meltdown, but his mom calmly takes Carter from Brent and distracts him by cooing and talking. It works remarkably well, and Andrew really has to remember that trick.

Their parents hug them all one last time and then Brent’s dad grabs the bag they packed for Carter that morning. With a last wave they leave, while Andrew and Brent stand on the porch, watching them.

 

The party winds down soon after, the guys with kids are the first ones to leave, and then others start following suit until it’s only Brent and Andrew who are left.

Andrew sees Jonny and Kaner off, who are the last ones to leave, and when he returns to Brent he’s standing down by the shore, looking out at the lake. It’s beautiful with the moon shining on it. Brent turns towards Andrew with a smile, when he hears him approach, and pulls him in so he can loop his arms around his waist. They stand there for a moment, basking in the balmy summer evening, Andrew leaning into Brent’s embrace.

Then finally Brent leans down and presses a kiss to Andrew’s shoulder, and to the side of his neck. He noses at Andrew’s jaw and then he nibbles at Andrew’s earlobe.

Andrew lets out a breathless laugh. “Maybe we should get inside for this,” he says, as he turns his head until Brent can press a kiss to his jaw and turn him around to kiss him properly. Andrew goes only too willingly, grabbing at Brent’s shoulders as he does so. It starts as a romantic kiss in the moonlight, but soon it turns into something more heated, their lips demanding. Andrew finds himself plastered to Brent’s body, one of Brent’s thighs between his, and only wanting to get closer.

They’re both panting when they come up for air, and even with the little light they have Andrew knows that Brent’s pupils are blown. He doesn’t want to step away, he really doesn’t, but he forces himself to do it anyways. He smirks at Brent, a slow, seductive thing (he hopes), and takes his hand to pull him back to the house.

“Come on,” he says, and his voice is raspy, “We’ve got a bedroom for this.”

Brent follows him easily, but when Andrew wants to step into the house Brent stops him. He answers Andrew’s raised eyebrow with a smirk, and then before Andrew can do anything about it, he’s being picked up and has to hold on to Brent’s shoulder.

He laughs helplessly. “You gonna carry me across the threshold?”

“That’s the plan, it’s my house after all,” Brent says with a laugh of his own, and god, Andrew is charmed.

They have to shuffle in sideways, but no one hits any extremities against the door frame, so they’re definitely counting it as a success. Once he’s back on his own feet, and the door is closed, Andrew crowds Brent against it, smirking up at him and trailing his hands down Brent’s sides.

“So about that bedroom…” he drawls, and Brent smirks, when he grabs Andrew’s face in both of his hands and presses a searing kiss to his lips. He starts guiding him backwards away from the door, sliding Andrew’s jacket off his shoulders in the process.

They only stop kissing to toe off their shoes, take off their socks and walk up the stairs, and then they don’t part again until the backs of Andrew’s knees hit the edge of the bed. By that time they’re both down to their underwear. Andrew shimmies out of his briefs and lets himself fall onto the bed, and smirks up at Brent, as he slides his hands up Brent’s thighs. He leans in to press a kiss to Brent’s abdomen before he scoots back on the bed and settles in against the pillows.

“You coming?” he asks, eyebrow cocked, and Brent laughs breathlessly before he strip s off his own underwear and crawls up the bed to pull Andrew back into a filthy kiss.

 

They leave after a quick breakfast early the next morning to fly to the Bahamas, and this is where Andrew has to contain his excitement, because this trip is all his planning. All Brent knows about is is where they’re going.

They’re both not exactly awake yet so they spend the first leg of their flight leaning against each other and napping. Andrew tries just leaning against Brent’s shoulder, but Brent wraps an arm around him and they end up settling against each other. They spend most of their day on planes, interrupted by layovers, and even though they took the earliest flight possible they don’t reach their destination until the evening.

They’re both tired again at that point, but even though it’s dark and they can’t see much of their surroundings there’s the most beautiful smile on Brent’s face when they reach the place Andrew booked for them for the next two weeks.

It had been a lucky find on Andrew’s part, a small private guest house, a more luxurious version of a hut by the beach. It’s in a small, well-tended garden, and Andrew knows from the photos he has seen online that there’s a path through a narrow strip of palm trees that leads to a private beach. When Andrew had found it, he had fallen in love immediately.

Because Andrew’s planning is meticulous, there’s a small dinner set up for them on the veranda that wraps around most of the house. The table is small, but it’s beautifully decorated with flowers and candles, and with the low murmur of the waves it’s a pretty nice first evening.

The food itself is more of a snack, there’s some fruit and a few bite-sized things inspired by local cuisine. They had eaten on their flight, but this  is a good refreshment before they get to go to bed.

Neither of them is up for much tonight, so they stick to digging out pyjama pants and their toothbrushes from the top of their luggage, brush their teeth and head straight to bed. The breeze that comes in through the open window cools the room down enough for them to curl up together under the thin sheets, and Andrew barely manages to lope and arm loosely around Brent before he drifts off.

By the time they wake up the next morning the sun is already up. When Andrew opens his eyes Brent is already awake, playing with Andrew’s hair while he’s scrolling through messages on his phone. Andrew’s arm is thrown across his thighs and his nose is nestled against his hip.

“Coulda woken me,” Andrew mumbles at him.

Brent smiles and continues to card his fingers through Andrew’s hair. “You didn’t wake up when I moved so I figured it was better to let you sleep.”

Andrew hums against his thigh, and says, “Anything interesting?”

“Well wishes from the guys who couldn’t come mostly. Your mom says Carter went to bed without a hitch last night, but Charlie seems a bit sad. He’s getting along with Hersh, so she thinks he’ll come around soon.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” Brent puts down his phone and smiles at Andrew again. “So what’s the plan, Mr. Honeymoon-Planner?”

Andrew stretches and sits up. “Well, breakfast first, and then you get to decide if we do some exploring or if we have a beach day today and do the exploring tomorrow. Then there’s dinner on the veranda again this evening.”

“Let’s keep the exploring for tomorrow, “Brent decides after a moment’s thought. “We haven’t even seen all of this place, yet.”

Andrew nods and then he leans forward with a smile and kisses Brent just because. Brent smiles into it, and Andrew is about to try to deepen the kiss, when his stomach rumbles loudly, and they both pull away with a chuckle.

“We better solve that problem first,” Brent says with a smirk.

“Pity,” Andrew says. “I was just about to get ideas.”

“We still have a lot of time to realise those.”

“Yeah.”

They get up and after a quick shower to finally wash off the travel funk, they walk out onto the veranda to have breakfast. They take it slow, savouring their coffee and the view over the garden, which turns out to be a real paradise in daylight. Brent hooks his foot around Andrew’s under the table and smiles at him across his cup of coffee, and Andrew knows this was a good choice. After breakfast they unpack their suitcases, before they change into swim shorts, put on sunscreen and grab anything else they might need for the beach.

They follow a path winding through the vegetation at the edge of the garden and then through some palm trees and onto their own private stretch of beautiful Caribbean beach. It’s pretty much every dreamy Caribbean beach photo ever, and Andrew absolutely loves it. There’s even a hammock hanging between two palm trees. They drop their stuff at the bottom of one of the trees and smile at each other. This is a good place to spend the next two weeks.

Their honeymoon passes almost too fast. They spend a lot of time in the hammock on the beach, go out to explore the island, and make very good use of the bed. Andrew’s mom updates them on Carter and Charlie, and Andrew takes a couple of photos for his Instagram. On one of their exploration trips they find a wonderful little bar in a harbour that serves local food, and they end up having dinner there, looking out over the water and eating some spicy fish dish.

They’re full and content when they get back to the house and they decide to go on a short walk along the beach before going to bed. They walk along the edge of the surf, and it’s there, when he’s glancing at Brent in the moonlight that Andrew has the thought. He gives himself until they reach the furthest part of the beach and turn around to think about it, but this is not something he thinks he’ll change his mind about.

He’s about to open his mouth to tell Brent about it when Brent says, “So I’ve been thinking.”

“What about?” Andrew asks, mentally filing his own thought away for later.

“Carter is turning one, and well, I’ve always wanted to have more than one kid. So… would you want to have more kids together? Planned ones, I mean.”

Andrew lets out a soft, unbelieving laugh, because apparently Brent can read his mind. “I was just thinking the same thing,” he says, still laughing. “Because I’d love to raise more kids with you.” 

Brent stops and when Andrew turns to look at him, there’s a wide smile on his face. Andrew smiles back and lets go of Brent’s hand to reach up and take his face into both of his hands so he can pull him down and kiss him.

 

Their last evening arrives far too soon. They spend it lying in the hammock, looking out at the moonlit sea. It’s a beautiful evening to wrap up their trip, and as much as they’re both looking forward to seeing Carter again, they’re a bit wistful about leaving this place behind.

“We should come back some time when Carter’s older,” Brent says.

“Yeah,” Andrew says. “I think he’d love it here.”

Brent trails his fingers idly up and down Andrew’s arm and they lapse into silence for a moment. “You know what we haven’t tried yet?” he says, and Andrew can practically hear him waggle his eyebrows.

He laughs. “I’m not having sex in a hammock. That’s just inviting trouble.”

“Eh, we’d fall softly.”

“We’re still not doing it.”

But Andrew turns as cautiously as he dares to so he faces Brent and can grin at him. “What we can do though,” he says, “is making out in the hammock and move the rest to that frankly amazing bedroom over there.”

A slow, languid smirk spreads over Brent’s face and he shifts around a little to accommodate Andrew better. “Now that sounds like a plan I can get behind.”

Andrew has to stretch, because he doesn’t dare make the awkward shuffle it would take him to get his face to the same height as Brent’s, but Brent meets him halfway, and it’s less awkward than Andrew feared.

It’s a slow kiss at first, their lips gently moving against each other, and Andrew could get lost in it, he thinks, his toes curling. But then Brent nibbles at his bottom lip and when Andrew opens his mouth he uses the opportunity to deepen the kiss, and Andrew’s found again. It’s more demanding after that. Both of them are giving and taking what they can. Andrew uses Brent’s shoulders as leverage to pull himself up after all, and Brent uses the movement to slide his hands into his shorts and grab his ass. He pulls Andrew in, and Andrew groans at the tease of friction it creates. He manages to throw one of his legs across one of Brent’s so his thigh slots in between Andrew’s, which is much better. Especially when Brent lets out a groan of his own and flexes his fingers against Andrew’s ass. Andrew attacks his lips with new vigour, and moves his hips against Brent’s for good measure. They lie like that for a while, moving against each other and kissing fervently, and at some point Andrew thinks dimly that he could probably come like this, rubbing himself off against Brent’s thigh. But before he can get any closer to that particular goal, Brent pulls back, panting.

Brent’s voice is husky when he says, “We should move this to the bedroom now, or we’re having sex in a hammock after all.”

Andrew laughs breathlessly. He really doesn’t want to move away from Brent, but he’s right about this, so he goes and gets out of the hammock. Brent makes a complaining sound and follows suit as fast as possible so he can press Andrew against a palm tree and continue to kiss him senseless.

They take far longer than usual for the now familiar trip back to the house, because they practically stumble from palm tree to palm tree like horny teenagers. Andrew actually has to stop Brent from jerking him off in the shade of the palm trees, because as hard as he is, and as much as he’d like to get off, he was serious about the bed.

By the time they make it back inside, Andrew’s rock hard inside his shorts, and Brent doesn’t look like he’s much better off. They lose their clothes in record time, and then they tumble onto the bed, still kissing, and Andrew thanks any god who’s willing to listen.

 

 

They get back to Canada the day before Carter’s birthday. Andrew’s mom insisted on hosting and so Brent gets to stay in Andrew’s old bedroom with him, which Andrew thinks is a little hilarious. There’s still old hockey posters on the wall, and Andrew’s bed, which always seemed to have plenty of space only barely manages to fit two grown hockey players. But they make it work, and Andrew is actually fine with the fact that they have to sleep so tightly together.

The biggest surprise is probably the fact that Liz is there and seems to be fully involved in the planning. Brent raises an eyebrow at her when she walks into the kitchen in a pair of sweats and a simple t-shirt, hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun.

“You’re here early,” he says.

Liz smirks. “As if I was going to miss this. Darlene asked me if I could help her organise and I said yes.”

“I thought we weren’t going to do anything big,” Andrew says. “Why does she need help with organising?”

“Oh believe me, you’ll still learn about that young padawan,” Liz says with a grin.

And then Andrew’s mom walks in with Carter, and any conversations about party planning have to wait. Andrew takes him off his mom’s arm and smiles. “Dada, dada,” Carter crows happily at them, grabbing at Andrew’s shirt and wriggling in his grip in his excitement. Andrew adjusts his arms a little to make sure he can’t fall down and grins.

“You had fun here?”

“Fun!” Carter agrees.

Since Liz has the guest room and there’s only so much space in the house , they share Andrew’s room with Carter as well, and even though Andrew’s parents fit a crib for him inside on top of Andrew’s old furniture, they end up letting him sleep in the bed with them. It may be an even tighter fit than originally expected, but they can work with it. Brent ends up on his back, with Carter pillowed on his chest on one side and Andrew snug against his other side, his head resting against his shoulder. It should probably feel cramped, but Andrew sleeps deep and when he wakes up , he feels far more rested than he probably has any right to.

They pick up Brent’s parents from the airport the next day, and the house feels full with them there. It makes Andrew think of Christmas and he really loves having his entire family together in the same place, laughing and joking with each other. And Liz fits right in into the chaos, joking along, and generally feeling like she belongs here.

They do keep the birthday party simple, despite any fears Andrew might have had. There’s cake and presents and more food, and they all sit together talking and having fun. There’s laughs when Andrew plays with Charlie and Hersh and gets tag teamed by the two, ending on his back with two dogs on top of him, because Hershey knows exactly how to knock him over.

It’s a great day, but much as he’d love to stay here, they still leave for Kelowna the next day.

 

They get back to training for the season, and enjoying the last weeks of their summer

They also start sounding out possibilities to have another kid. They talk to Carter about it, even though he’s a bit too small to understand what they mean, and he doesn’t seem opposed at least. And then somehow it all goes really fast and they have a surrogate for their child and then they’re already back in Chicago for training camp when they get the news that they’re going to be fathers again. It’s the day before camp starts and when Andrew tells Brent the news after getting off the phone with their surrogate they grin at each other across the kitchen. Andrew actually has to let out a giddy laugh, because wow. 

Over dinner that evening Brent says, “I think we should maybe move houses.”

“Yeah?” Andrew says because he has no idea where this is coming from right now.

“Yeah. It might be a good idea to upgrade a little on space with another kid on the way.”

Andrew hums thoughtfully. “You’re not wrong.”

“Besides,” Brent says, “I was still with Dayna when I bought this place, and I like it, but I’d like to live somewhere I picked together with you.”

“You already had me convinced, no need to do it again,” Andrew quips, but he’s also smiling warmly at Brent, who smirks back.

“Maybe I was just hoping it would be helpful to have said it when we argue about which colours to pick for the living room.”

“You mean we have to pick those ourselves? I thought they’d just be there the way we want them.” Andrew pulls a face. “I take it back, we’re not moving houses.”

Brent grins. “Too late, you already agreed. No take-backs.”

“You say that now. But I bet you change that tune when it turns out it’s actually really hard to find the perfect house.”

“We’ll do fine. After all I managed to find the perfect guy already, didn’t I?”

“So you think I’m perfect?”

“As perfect as I could wish for.” And then Brent smiles all sappy, and Andrew’s insides melt a little. The look on his own face is probably just as sappy, but he can’t do anything about that, nor would he want to.

“You’re pretty perfect yourself, you know?” Andrew says finally, because it’s true and he has to say something.

Brent only smiles.

 

Training camp is a little weird at first, with both Bollig and Leddy gone now, but Andrew finds his footing soon enough. He still has Saader and Smitty after all, and Brent is definitely not going anywhere any time soon.

Neither is the Kane and Toews show it turns out, and god, Andrew’s seriously asking himself how much longer he can take this, because matching contracts are a whole different level of weirdness for them.

“I’m starting to think we should lock them in a closet,” Smitty says at some point, staring fascinatedly at Jonny and Kaner playing keep-away over in a corner of the rink.

“It doesn’t work,” Saader says. “Sharpy tried that years ago.”

“Duncs told me that they tried it again in Sochi, and it still doesn’t work,” Andrew says.

“They have to reach the tipping point one day,” Saader adds wisely. “We’ll just have to hold out until then.” Andrew really hopes he’s right about that.

 

Camp goes well, and Andrew starts asking himself why he’s still surprised that it does. He’s been on this team long enough to know that they value him, hell he has that contract telling him just how much they value him. But still, there’s this moment right before he learns that he really has made the team for the upcoming season when he doubts that it’s going to be enough this year.

When he mentions it to Saader and Smitty one afternoon when they’re hanging out and playing with Carter, Smitty shrugs. “I don’t think it’s that unusual. I’d bet that even some of the veterans still get nervous about that.”

“As long as you get nervous about making the team you care enough to work for it,” Saader says. “I’m sure even Seabs is still nervous about that.”

And huh, Andrew hasn’t even thought about that, but now that he does he tries to remember what Brent looked like before he went in, and well, he doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he was playing with his wedding ring. He’s fairly sure it was the only thing that hinted at it, but he also knows Brent well enough to know that it definitely was a nervous tick in that moment and not as casual as it probably looked from the outside.

But Andrew says none of that out loud, because it’s one of these moments he’s treasuring for himself. Instead he just says, “Eh, I’ll have to ask him.”

 

House hunting turns out to be almost as hard as finding Liz was last year. One house is in a street that’s not to Brent’s liking  for reasons that completely elude Andrew, the next doesn’t even have a bit of space to let Charlie out. But it’s not like they have to move houses right now, so they take their time trying to find the one that feels perfect to both of them.

 

In the meantime the season finally starts. It’s a decent start, with more wins than losses, and Andrew feels good about it. The atmosphere in the locker room is great, and he doesn’t want to jinx anything this early into the season but he thinks they can go far this year. He couldn’t explain why but he kind of feels it in his gut, and when he looks into the faces of his teammates he knows they feel it, too.

 

They find a new house in early November, and it’s really all they could wish for. There’s enough space for their little family, including Liz, and rare as it is in Chicago the property comes with an actual garden that has enough space for the kids and Charlie to play, and to host the entire team and then some if they want to.

They both know that this is the house they want the minute they walk through the front door. Andrew can just immediately picture all of them in this place, he knows which corner of the living room Carter’s toys will end up in, and where Charlie will sit when they come home, wagging his tail to say hello. He can see himself on the couch with Brent, watching TV. It’s all there and there isn’t even furniture in this house right now.

When he looks at Brent he finds that he’s watching him with a soft smile.

“I guess this is it,” he says.

Andrew nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I think it is.”

And when Brent reaches out to tug him closer and kiss his temple affectionately, Andrew goes easily.

 

They seal the deal on the house right before the circus trip, but Andrew doesn’t really get to enjoy the feeling, because he injures himself. It’s not that bad, but it’s annoying. He flies out with the others, but between not playing and not being allowed to practice he has way too much time to feel bored.

 

They start the trip in Calgary and Saader, Smitty and Andrew meet up with Bollig to check out his new place. It’s nice to hang out and catch up, and even if Bollig acts like he doesn’t recognise Andrew anymore, he’s just the kind of asshole Andrew’s glad to have around. Even when Andrew overcompensates for not being able to play by running his mouth even more than usual, he just gives back as good as he gets until Andrew is less keyed up again . It’s decidedly different from all the different ways in which Brent gets him to shut up and calm down, but it’s something they’ve done countless times since they got to know each other, and the familiarity of it is probably half of the magic behind it.

 

The rest of the time Andrew fills with Skype calls to Liz and Carter, and looking at interior design ideas on the internet. Brent seems amused by it and weighs in occasionally, but as long as Andrew doesn’t get too carried away by too many different ideas, he leaves him to it.

When Andrew goes overboard Brent shuts his laptop and looks at him seriously.

“You need to take a break, babe,” he says. “We’re gonna get a professional to help us make it our place, and it’s good to go into that with some ideas, but not like this.”

“I just need to do _something_ ,” Andrew says. “I feel so useless.”

“You’re not babe.” Brent smiles softly as he says it, and then he picks the laptop up and puts it to the side, before he pulls Andrew in, careful not to hurt him. There’s something grounding about being in his arms, and Andrew feels himself relax a little. Brent pushes a little at him before he can fully sink into it though, and when Andrew looks at him questioningly he takes his face into both hands and kisses him, firm but slow, and it’s even better than the hug, because it takes up all of Andrew’s attention. Brent doesn’t let it get heated, and he doesn’t let Andrew deepen the kiss, even when he tries. He just keeps up the deliberate movement of his lips against Andrew’s without hurrying. His hands stay firmly at the sides of Andrew’s head, while Andrew’s come to rest against Brent’s chest, bunching up the fabric of his shirt as they hold on to it.

“Better?” Brent asks when they finally part.

“Yes,” Andrew says with a relieved sigh. “Much better.”

“Good. Then we’re watching a movie now and then we’re calling Carter and Liz so we can read him his story, because I’m not suspecting the rest of the team to you like this.”

They settle on catching up to Game of Thrones, and Brent keeps his arm wrapped around Andrew the entire time, holding him close and Andrew doesn’t think he has felt this relaxed sin ce he got injured.

 

Andrew finally gets cleared to play again for the game against the Avs, and he’s fairly sure everyone around him is glad about it. He can’t say he faults any of them, he knows how he gets when he can’t work off his surplus of energy.

 

They return to Chicago with a three game winning streak, and all the confidence that they need to keep it up.

Brent and Andrew sit down and start planning what furniture they’re definitely moving into the new house and what they’re throwing away, and then they brainstorm ideas together before they find an interior decorator to help them flesh out the details.

They debate moving before Christmas, but ultimately decide that it would make the schedule too tight. Nevertheless they start sorting through their things so they don’t have to move a bunch of stuff they don’t actually need.

 

They argue a little about some things. There’s a really ugly vase that Shawzy would love to throw out, but Brent seems dead set on keeping it. And Brent is determined to get rid of one of Andrew’s favourite rugs. They have a bit of a fight, and then Sharpy hears them discuss it on their way to the locker room and just laughs at them.

“You’re having a fight about a vase and a rug,” he says, still laughing. “Of all the things to fight about, it’s a vase and a rug.”

Andrew and Brent share a look and start laughing, because well, Sharpy’s right, it _is_ ridiculous.

“Let’s put them in the guest room,” Andrew says when they have calmed down a little. “That way we get to keep both, but don’t have to look at either.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Brent is still grinning broadly and Andrew knows all is well.

They do disagree on wall colours and interior design choices, too, but their decorator is great at mediating and proposing compromises. Andrew would hire her again on the spot.

The interior of the new house slowly takes shape and by the time it’s getting close to Christmas they mostly know what it’s going to look like.

 

They spend Christmas alone this year, only flying in their families for New Year’s and the Winter Classic. They make a nice dinner on Christmas Eve, and sleep in the next morning, after Andrew fetches Carter from his room in the morning hours and gets him to fall back asleep in their bed.

He’s grown so much, Andrew realises, he’s already walking, and talking in a mix of babbling and actual words, and he’s getting his first teeth. It’s really amazing to get to watch this and be there for most of it, even though he fully admits that he doesn’t envy Liz the nights of Carter teething that they miss. But right now, when Carter is curled up between them, sleeping peacefully, he’s just content.

Andrew finally wraps an arm loosely around Carter, hand reaching out towards Brent, and falls back asleep too.

 

He wakes up again to Carter poking him into the ribs, and when he opens his eyes Brent is smiling at him apologetically.

“I tried to stop him,” he says. “But it didn’t work.”

“Daddy,” Carter says from where he’s lying between them. “Pwesents.”

Andrew is torn between laughing and groaning, because he was fine sleeping until now. He settles for a sigh before he smiles at Carter.

“So you want presents?” he asks and Carter nods excitedly.

“And what about me? Do I get presents, too?” Brent asks with a smile.

“I don’t know, are we sure Santa came last night?”

“Yes!” Carter says, and Andrew wishes that he still believed that the world was this simple.

 

They get out of bed, and because Brent is an amazing husband he quickly disappears into the kitchen to fetch Andrew coffee, while Andrew sits Carter down on the couch and holds him back from starting to open his presents.

“You gotta wait for your dad,” Andrew tells him. “It wouldn’t be fair to start without him.” But he still has to wrap an arm around Carter to stop him from jumping off the couch. Brent returns and exchanges coffee for child, and Andrew is glad that he can sit back and watch while he tries to wake up properly.

Carter is a master at ripping off wrapping paper, and outside of a few close calls when he tries to stuff the paper in his mouth, Brent just gets to hold him in his lap and help out occasionally. And by the time they’re done with Carter’s presents Andrew is fully awake and can actually appreciate his new toys with enough enthusiasm.

When they get to their own presents there’s two flat presents labelled “from Carter” in Liz’ neat handwriting. When they unwrap them there’s two gypsum plates, one with imprints of Carter’s feet, one with imprints of his hands. Liz has labelled them with his name and the date and Carter’s age. They’re already framed and there’s no question that they’ll hang on a wall in their new place.

 

Since they’re in Washington for the Winter Classic there’s a team New Year’s party at their hotel. Or rather what passes for a party when they technically have to be in bed early, because they have a matinee game the next day. It would suck a little more if outdoor games weren’t as much fun as they are. They stay up until midnight and wish each other a happy new year before they all head off to bed.

 

They lose the game but thanks to the Road to the Winter Classic series the whole world gets to witness Jonny’s potty mouth, which is beautiful in itself, and means they can chirp him mercilessly.

 


	3. Everything I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew thought he knew what it felt like to win the Stanley Cup, but as it turns out there is winning the Stanley Cup and then there’s winning the Stanley Cup on home ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from (Everything I Do) I Do It For You by Bryan Adams

In the end they don’t move into their new home until early February, when they get to stay in Chicago for a lengthy two week home stand. Since they have movers for the heavy lifting they’re left with packing and unpacking and taking care that Carter and Charlie don’t run off where they shouldn’t go.

Luckily it’s not too far from one house to the other, so they manage to get everything moved in one day. While that still leaves them with a bunch of boxes and a ton of stuff that needs to be unpacked and put away, they get to enjoy their first evening in their new living room with Chinese takeaway. They’re both beat, and Carter is fast asleep in his new nursery already, but they’re glad they’re finally here. Andrew can see things taking shape, Charlie’s all set up in a corner already, and it probably won’t be long before Carter’s toys are strewn about in the barely contained chaos that comes with raising a toddler.

He sags a little against Brent’s shoulder, smiling and content with it all, and Brent puts an arm around him as he leans back and nuzzles his head.

“You know, when we get everything organised this will feel even better. It’s already starting to feel like home,” Brent says.

“Yeah.” Andrew turns his head and sees that Brent has his eyes closed. He smiles and leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I think we should go to bed,” he adds.

Brent makes a non-committal sound, but when Andrew gets up and gently pulls on his arm to get him to follow he comes easily.

 

Andrew hasn’t actually seen their new bedroom in person yet, he hadn’t even realised it, but Brent had managed to keep him down on the first floor all day. Brent’s right behind him as he opens the door to the master bedroom, hands on Andrew’s hips. Andrew stops to actually look at the room before entering and Brent comes to stand right behind him, his front pressed to Andrew’s back.

Apart from Carter’s room the bedroom is probably the only room in the house that’s all done already, and Andrew is a little impressed. And on top of that Brent has somehow managed to smuggle a bouquet of roses past Andrew and placed it on Andrew’s nightstand.

“I know it’s a few days early,” Brent says. “But I thought it was a good occasion. Happy early anniversary.”

Andrew smiles and turns around to look up at him. “It’s perfect.” He leans up to press a kiss to Brent’s lips. “You’ll still have to wait for your present until the actual date, though.”

“I think I’ll survive.” Brent smiles back at him. His hands slip a bit higher, until his fingers brush Andrew’s skin. “So I know it was a hard day, but how about we christen that new bed anyways?” Brent asks.

Andrew gives him a slow smile. “I like that idea.”

Brent smirks and pulls him in until their bodies are flush together. When he leans down for another, much filthier kiss, Andrew meets him halfway.

 

By the time the last game of their home stand comes around they have finally managed to unpack all boxes and put everything where it belongs. Their house really feels like home now, and they start throwing around dates for an official housewarming party.

But before they can get very far they play the Panthers and Kaner breaks his clavicle.

It’s a dumb hit that makes him fall awkwardly into the boards, and for a moment all Andrew can think is “Shit”. He watches as trainers walk out to where Kaner is still lying on the ice and feels dread pool in his stomach. This is not good.

What’s even worse is watching Jonny. He hovers at Kaner’s side, a look of deep concern etched on his face, and even when they help Kaner skate off to take care of him, he’s not far behind and stays with him until he watches him walk down the tunnel. Andrew worries for a second whether Jonny can get his head back in the game, but then Jonny turns and looks over at the Panthers’ bench, and Andrew knows there’s no need to worry. Jonny is out for revenge now.

 

They beat the Panthers in the shootout and then they go to Florida and beat them again for good measure. They all feel a little better about themselves after that, Andrew guesses.

The only one who doesn’t seem to feel any better is Jonny. They keep winning, but Jonny doesn’t look like it. He’s doing his damned best to prove that one can be too focused, and while Brent is still chirping him about needing to unclench, Andrew can see that he’s worrying.

 

Andrew knows that Brent is already considering an intervention by the time Jonny turns up on their doorstep after an OT loss against the Rangers.

It’s still early, and they’re about to have breakfast when Jonny rings the bell. He has the decency to look a bit sheepish, and to bring pancakes, and Brent wordlessly puts a cup of coffee down in front of him, while he’s saying hi to Carter.

“What brings you here this morning?” Brent asks, sipping his coffee.

“I needed someone to talk to,” Jonny says. He’s fidgety and doesn’t meet their eyes, and Brent just waits him out. “I… how did you guys figure out that you wanted to be together?” he finally blurts out.

Andrew doesn’t laugh at him, but it’s a close thing.

“We talked,” Brent says mildly. “We talked about what we were doing and what we wanted out of it. And by the end of it we had figured it out.”

“No, I mean… how did you know? How did you know that you didn’t just want to be friends?”

Andrew and Brent exchange a look, and then Andrew says, “We liked each other. It was fun to flirt with Brent, and when he said he wanted us to be together, I knew I wanted to try at least. I had thought about it, too and…it just felt right.”

“So you just… knew?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Andrew says with a shrug.

“What’s this about?” Brent asks. “Because I doubt you came over here to ask that just because you woke up wanting to know.”

Jonny stares at his coffee for a moment, until he finally says softly, “I think I’m in love with Kaner.”

“Okay,” Brent says.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” Jonny looks up at them curiously. “Just okay, nothing more?”

Brent shrugs. “You’ve been crazy about each other pretty much since you started playing together. It’s not exactly a surprise.”

“I just… he’s my best friend. I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Listen Jon, when I say you two are crazy about each other, I mean both of you, not just you about him. I know it’s hard to talk to him about this, but it’ll be worth it.”

“You think so?” There’s hope in Jonny’s eyes, it’s a little desperate maybe, but Andrew kind of gets it. If he had been in Jonny’s situation he would have been desperate for every bit of hope he could get, too.

“Yes, I think so,” Brent says, and then with a look at Andrew. “We both do, actually.”

Andrew nods. “It’s been a while since I was a rookie, but even then it was obvious. Talk to him. It may take him a bit to get used to, but I don’t think he’s opposed.”

Jonny looks like he’s about to say something, but they’re interrupted by Carter squirming in his seat and saying, “Potty!”

Brent sighs and picks him up from his seat. “You need to go?” he asks, and Carter nods eagerly. Brent turns to them. “I’ll be right back,” he says and quickly leaves the kitchen.

Andrew and Jonny are both silent for a moment, until Andrew realises that Jonny is watching him. “What?” he says, raising one eyebrow.

“I just thought about how you manage to take everything in your stride,” Jonny says. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Just the way you talked about getting together with Seabs, and how ready you were to raise Carter with him. It seems like whatever life throws at you, you just roll with it.”

“It’s a talent, I know,” Andrew says with a smirk. But he sobers right up again. “It’s just something I do. It’s what got me where I am today. And really, by the time Brent told me he wanted us to actually date and be together I already knew that I wanted to try it if I got the chance. I just hadn’t been sure that it was actually a possibility. And when Carter came around, I knew I didn’t want to give up on Brent just because it would mean taking responsibility. I didn’t even have to think about that when he called me. He just brings out the best in me.” It sounds sappy, even to Andrew, but it’s the only way he can explain it.

Jonny smiles. “I think you bring out the best in each other. And you just seem to get each other. It’s like you always know what the other needs. The only other person I’ve seen Seabs do that with is Duncs.”

“You and Kaner do the same thing,” Andrew says.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” Jonny looks thoughtful now, and Andrew leaves him to it.

Then Jonny pushes his mug away and gets up.

“I think I should get going,” he says. “I have to talk to Kaner.”

Andrew nods. “I’ll tell Brent where you went.” Jonny walks towards the door, but Andrew say his name before he reaches it and he stops and turns around. “I don’t think you’ll need it, but we’re here if you need us.”

“I know,” Jonny says with a smile. “And I’ll keep it in mind.”

They don’t hear back from Jonny all day, which Andrew guesses is a good sign, and when Jonny comes into practice the next day he seems a lot more relaxed than before, which is definitely a good sign. He still doesn’t tell them how his talk with Kaner ended, but Andrew is willing to bet it was good.

 

They’re home for a few days after the dad trip to San Jose when Bicks stops Andrew and Brent after practice.

“Can I talk to you guys for a second?” he asks, and Andrew exchanges a confused look with Brent.

“Yeah, what’s up man?” Andrew says.

“I’ve got a favour to ask. Amanda and I have this friend who can’t take care of her dog anymore, and we’re still looking for a shelter to take her in. She doesn’t really get along with our pits, so I wanted to ask if you guys could take her in for a couple of days? Provided she gets along with Charlie of course.” Bicks looks a little sheepish.

Andrew looks at Brent, who just gives him a shrug and this little nod with his head that tells Andrew that he’s not opposed to helping Bicks out here.

“How large is this dog?” Andrew asks, because well, he knows Bick’s pits and they kind of promised Liz that there would be no large dogs for her to take care of.

“Oh she’s not that large, around the same size as Charlie, I think,” Bicks hurries to reassure them. “I know you didn’t want to take in a large dog.”

“Well I guess if you bring her over to see if she and Charlie get along we can take care of her for a couple of days.” Andrew shrugs.

Bicks actually kind of beams at them. “That would be amazing. I’ll bring her over this afternoon if you’re okay with that?”

“Just text us before you come,” Brent says, and Bicks nods.

 

The dog’s name is Bailey, which Andrew finds really fitting. Brent shakes his head at him.

“I don’t know what I expected from a guy who was involved in calling his parents’ dog Hershey, because she looks like chocolate,” he chirps, smiling fondly.

“It’s not like I was the only one involved in that decision,” Andrew says with a shrug. “Besides, Hershey is an awesome name for a dog.”

Brent just laughs at him for that.

Either way, Bailey does get along with Charlie, which is good, and she also seems fine with all of the humans of the household, which is even better. It’s actually kind of hilarious to watch Charlie stand by and watch Bailey’s every move when she meets Carter. He looks ready to jump in and protect him if he has to. But Bailey wags her tail at Carter and tries to lick his face, and Carter says “Dog!” in this really happy voice, and yeah, they’re definitely taking care of Bailey for a few days.

Except by the time Bicks tells them that they have found a shelter to take Bailey in they’ve all kind of fallen in love with her. She and Charlie get along really well, Carter is happy to have two dogs to play with, and even Liz is completely fine with two dogs instead of one. So they decide to adopt Bailey as well. Andrew’s fairly sure that it’s going to be absolute chaos by the time their daughter is born, but he’s kind of looking forward to it.

 

And yeah, their daughter is also still something they’re preparing for. They’ve been as involved as they could with their schedule and the fact that their surrogate lives in Kelowna. There’s a bunch of ultrasounds taped to their fridge in between Carter’s drawings and assorted family pictures, and while they can’t tag along for doctor’s appointments they make an effort to talk with Anna via Skype as often as they can.

The pregnancy has gone without a hitch so far, which is good, and Anna has been a great sport about telling them every little thing they’re missing. She’s living with her sister, who is probably a saint for putting up with a pregnant woman without complaining, even indulging spontaneous food cravings.

They’re still throwing around baby names for the newest addition to their family, but then they still have three months to make that decision.

 

They’re getting ever closer to the start of the playoffs, and it feels like the entire team is hungry for it. They lost Smitty, which is a pity, because he’s one of the nicest guys Andrew knows, but it’s not like he’s dead and Desi is a great guy, too. Kaner is on the mend as well, and it actually starts to look like he may be able to come back early enough to start into the playoffs with the rest of them.

They round out the season with a four game losing streak, but it doesn’t even matter, because the playoffs are the playoffs and they all know they can do this.

 

Starting against the Preds is only mildly better than starting against the Blues, but they manage to win the first game of the series, even if it takes them into the second OT period to wrap it up. They lose the second game in Nashville, but that makes winning the two home games after that even sweeter. It takes them until 3OT to win Game 4 and it’s Brent who finally puts them out of their misery. Andrew is fiercely proud of him somewhere underneath his relief that this is finally over. When Brent has to do an interview and goes on live TV using the words “fruit and all sorts of crap” there’s enough amusement throughout the locker room that it becomes a bit of a running gag.

 

They have five days before they start playing the next series against the Wild, and they spend as much time as possible at home. The nursery for the new baby is almost done, it just needs some finishing touches, and Carter seems to grow ever more fascinated with the prospect of having a little sister. He’s asking a lot of questions, and according to Liz she’s had to explain to him several times already that his sister is going to be very small for a while, and that he’ll have to wait before he can actually play with her.

But Carter still seems overjoyed about being a brother, and both Andrew and Brent think it’s kind of adorable.

 

They really hit their stride for the series against the Wild and end up sweeping them. It’s just one series, and they’re still a long way from actually winning the Cup, but they allow themselves an evening to bask in their win.

Sweeping the Wild also means that they get to have a week without a game before playing the Conference Final against the Ducks, which is a luxury none of them quite expected to have during the playoffs. Andrew almost feels like it’s dangerous to have this much time between series, even if he’s glad for every day he gets to recover from his various bruises and aching muscles. Thanks to Liz, who’s sticking with her “Don’t you dare do anything but relax” rule, there’s a lot more napping involved than Andrew and Brent had hoped for, and by the time they fly out to California for Game 1 they’re way more rested than they have any business to be during the playoffs.

 

The first game is kind of a shit show and ends in a 4-1 loss, but then it’s the Ducks and they’re not exactly easy to play against. Game 2 is a different story. They manage to keep it tied and then they fight on through OT. In 2OT they have the short hope that they managed to win it, when Andrew kind of headbutts the puck into the goal, and he’s definitely ready to celebrate that if they actually let it count, but it’s still the NHL and they conclude that he moved his head so they have to play on.

When they finally win it in 3OT Andrew is ready to collapse. He can’t wait to get into a bed and curl up with his husband and sleep until he feels human again. Brent doesn’t look much better off.

They push the series to Game 7 before they win it, and damn, it feels good to stand here and know they’re Conference Champions and that they’ll get to play in the Stanley Cup Final again. Andrew and Brent stand next to each other, shoulders pressed together, and watch as Jonny accepts the Campbell Bowl. They grin at each other, when they cheer along with their team mates, and damn, Andrew can’t believe he gets to experience this a second time.

They only have a couple of days off before the Cup final, and it’s kind of busy with picking up their parents from the airport and getting them settled in before they have to fly out to Florida.

They win Game 1 just to lose Games 2 and 3, but somehow their confidence never waivers. They’ve been here before, they can do it again. Duncs, who has been putting up an insane amount of playing time, keeps playing his heart out, and some days Andrew has trouble believing that he’s really human, even though he has known Duncs for years now.

Between Duncs seemingly willing to drag them to the Cup all on his own, and the rest of them trying to keep up with him, they win the next three games in a row. It’s only after the last horn of Game 6 sounds and the crowd goes completely nuts, that Andrew actually realises that they just won the Cup on home ice.

 

Andrew thought he knew what it felt like to win the Stanley Cup, but as it turns out there is winning the Stanley Cup and then there’s winning the Stanley Cup on home ice.

They all barrel into each other on the ice in a crush of hockey players screaming into each other’s faces, and yes, it’s not unlike their last celebration, but this time the entire arena is on their side and it’s deafening. Andrew feels like he could fly and maybe fight a bunch of dragons all at once, and there’s nothing that can be better than this.

He and Brent find each other while they’re all waiting for things to be set up so Jonny can lift the Cup, and Brent practically yanks Andrew in as soon as he’s within reach. They knock into each other and when Andrew grins up at him he sees his exact feelings mirrored in Brent’s face. Brent takes his face into his hands and kisses him hard, and Andrew just holds on to him, his hands fisted into Brent’s jersey as he kisses back. Sharpy and Duncs disrupt them by knocking into them, all smiles and waggling eyebrows (Sharpy) and “Get a room”s (Duncs).

And then they bring out the Cup and Jonny skates up to Bettman and there’s the whole official part and then Jonny finally hoists it and somehow the UC gets even louder than before.

They all get their rounds with the Cup, and then their families are there and Andrew and Brent have to hand Carter back and forth between them for a bit, because he can’t seem to decide who he wants to be with more. They laugh, and accept the congratulations from their families.

They take pictures together, and talk to their team mates and their families, and it’s sheer luck that Andrew sees Jonny skate up to Kaner, the Cup in his hands and a determined look in his eyes. He elbows Brent next to him. Duncs, Sharpy and Saader, who are all standing with them look over, too and they all watch as Jonny talks to Kaner, who has this happy grin on his face that screams fondness. Kaner nods to whatever Jonny is saying, and when Jonny checks that they’re really on camera, Andrew thinks that he knows what’s next.

And really, Jonny takes one side of the Cup and Kaner the other and they lift it. They grin at each other for a moment, and then they both lean in and kiss. And hell, it looks kind of awkward, with the way they’re still holding the Cup above their heads, but Andrew will be damned if this isn’t going to be all over the news tomorrow morning.

Jonny and Kaner part, and for a moment they just smile at each other all dopey. They put down the Cup, and all of a sudden Sharpy is shouting “Oh my god, finally!” Jonny and Kaner barely get to prepare themselves before he’s crushing them both in a hug.

The rest of their group follows at a more leisurely pace, and there’s grins and hugs and more congratulations, and wow, Andrew’s glad that this is his team.

 

They get off the ice eventually, and from there it’s kind of a blur. Carter is barely awake by then and gets whisked away to spend the night at the hotel with his grandparents.

There’s beer and champagne waiting in the locker room and they’re all kind of sweaty and disgusting, but who even cares when you just won the Stanley Cup. It’s loud, it’s chaos, and Andrew wouldn’t want to be anywhere else tonight.

He’s arm in arm with Brent, and then he’s arm in arm with Saader, and he couldn’t say how he got where or who he has talked to over the course of the evening.

They finally spill out of the UC and into the streets of Chicago in the early morning hours, and Brent and Andrew start their own personal mission of getting Duncs as drunk as possible, because he fucking deserves it for the way he played. It doesn’t take them long, and to be fair, the fact that they had all started drinking back in the locker room kind of helped, but it’s fun watching Duncs get decreasingly coherent.

They bow out relatively early to go home before they’re too drunk. Andrew’s still hyped up and he doesn’t even realise that his leg has started jiggling until Brent reaches over and grips his knee. His hand is heavy and warm on Andrew’s thigh, and Andrew’s focus narrows down on it immediately. Brent’s not looking at him, but Andrew can see the smile playing around his lips as his fingers start tracing up and down the inside of Andrew’s knee. Andrew has to swallow and quickly moves to lace their fingers together because he doesn’t think he can take this all the way home. He lets their hands lie on his knee for good measure, because it grounds him barely enough to not start jiggling his leg again, and Brent just starts moving his thumb along Andrew’s.

The silence between them is comfortable and a little charged, and when they finally reach their house and Brent has paid for the cab they only barely make it inside.

As it is, Andrew goes ahead to unlock the door, and Brent crowds in from behind, barely leaving a breath of air between their bodies. His hands grasp Andrew’s hips, and as soon as they’re inside he kicks the door closed behind them and crowds Andrew against the wall of the hallway. Andrew goes easily, turning around so his back hits the wall and then he only has to tilt up his head and Brent’s lips are on his.

They make out there against the wall of the hallway, and Andrew loses track of time in the feeling of Brent’s lips against his, the slide of their tongues, the way their bodies are pressed together and their hands roaming, eager to touch. Their shirts are rucked up, because they were both desperate to get their hands on skin, and Brent’s thigh is slotted firmly between Andrew’s, and Andrew is grinding down, desperate for the friction. He thinks he could come like this, just grinding against Brent in their dark hallway.

But Brent steps away before Andrew can get onto that. Andrew can see that it takes him a lot of willpower, and his hands never leave Andrew’s hips. He licks his lips and swallows, and god, Andrew wants nothing more than to step close again and get his lips back on Brent’s skin. But he restrains himself, just toes off his shoes as Brent does, and takes his hand and pulls him along to the bedroom, because this will be so much better if they’re naked and in a bed.

 

They wake up late the next day, the sun’s already high up in the sky, and Andrew can hear Carter and the dogs out in the garden. Brent’s still dead to the world next to him, sheets pooled somewhere around his hips, and Andrew can’t help the smile as he watches his chest rise and fall. He’s comfortable and the view is definitely nice enough to make him want to stay, but his stomach growls and he’s probably better off getting some food into his belly.

He showers and gets dressed and after taking care to make as little noise as possible as he closes the bedroom door behind himself, he goes down to the kitchen.

Their moms are sitting at the kitchen table with Liz, chatting while their dads are outside with Carter. There’s still a large stack of pancakes on the table between them and while Andrew gets a cup of coffee Nancy piles pancakes on a plate for him and sticks them in the microwave to warm them up again. She hands it over when they’re warm and Andrew tucks in with a smile, letting the conversation wash over him as he eats.

Brent joins them a  bit later, freshly showered, but still sleepy, and tucks himself into Andrew’s side, stealing his coffee and bites from his pancakes as he waits for his own to warm up again. He’s adorable like this, Andrew thinks. He loves watching Brent wake up this way, slow and gradually, and in no hurry to be anywhere. It’s beautiful, and the look on his face is all soft and a little grumpy sometimes.

 

There’s a party at Sharpy’s house today, and they all spend a lot of it trying to get Jonny and Kaner to spill the beans on when and how they got together. It’s all out of curiosity of course, and Hoss definitely doesn’t have his phone out to compare notes with any bets that definitely haven’t been placed.

“It was when I was injured,” Kaner says finally. “He just turned up at my door one day and said he had to talk to me. And then he told me he loved me.” He smiles fondly at Jonny, whose eyes haven’t really left him since they arrived. “And well, I told him he better take me on a date then.”

There’s amused laughter at that, only disrupted by a disbelieving sound from Hoss.

“Someone call Smitty,” he says. “He got all of it right.”

There’s token protest from Jonny at them betting on their love life, but there’s no heat behind it, and there’ already several guys scrambling for their phones to text Smitty the good news.

It’s a bit later when they’re chatting with Jonny and Kaner that Jonny says, “I just wanted to say thank you again. I’m not sure what I would have done without your advice.”

“It’s fine,” Brent says with a smile. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

 

They have a big family dinner that evening to celebrate, and Liz is there, too. She had tried to leave, saying she didn’t want to intrude on their family time, but Nancy and Darlene had both smiled and told her that she definitely wasn’t intruding, and Andrew’s dad had smiled and handed her a potato peeler and motioned her to sit down with him while Brent asked her what she wanted to drink. She had ducked her head with a smile and accepted.

There’s the parade and locker clear-out day, and then they’re already off to Kelowna, because their daughter is due any day now, and they really want to be there for the birth this time.

 

They make it just in time to have a good round of sleep and wake up to the call from Anna.

They’re still asleep when Andrew’s phone starts ringing. He grumbles a little as he fumbles for it, but when he picks it up and it’s Anna’s sister on the other end, telling him they’re on the way to the hospital right now, every bit of tiredness that remains falls right off and he’s sitting up in bed.

“Yeah, okay, we’re on our way,” he says and when they hang up Brent’s already struggling to fully wake up.

“Is it time already?” he asks blearily, and Andrew nods.

“They’re on the way to the hospital right now.” Andrew’s already getting up and grabs a pair of sweatpants and a shirt from the nearest chair. “You get yourself out of bed, I’ll go get you some coffee,” he says as he pulls the sweatpants on, and then he’s already out of the door and on the way downstairs. He starts the coffee machine before he pulls on his shirt and fires off a text to the family group chat to let everyone know. By the time Brent has gotten himself to the kitchen Andrew is just screwing a travel mug with coffee shut, and they just have to put on their shoes and are ready to leave.

Andrew’s driving and he’s grateful it’s late enough for the morning traffic to be over already, so they’re relatively fast on their way to the hospital.

Anna’s sister is already waiting for them when they arrive.

“They’re not expecting any complications,” she tells them. “So there’s no need to worry. All we can do is wait.”

To everyone’s surprise it’s Brent who can’t stop pacing. Andrew is content to sit down and wait, but Brent paces around the room in restless circles, and Andrew is starting to think that it was a mistake to let him have that coffee. He tries to get him to sit down, but soon enough he’s up and back to pacing again.

When it gets too bad, Andrew sends him to get them bottles of water and snacks, because neither of them has had any food so far today. Anna’s sister shoots him a thankful look as soon as Brent’s out of the door.

“Is he always this nervous?” she asks.

“Not usually,” Andrew says. “If you had asked me beforehand I would have told you that I’m much more likely to start pacing than Brent is. It looks like he got all of the nervous energy today.”

She laughs at that. “It definitely seems like it. You’re awfully relaxed compared to him.”

“I tend to roll with the punches.” Andrew shrugs. “It doesn’t mean I’m not nervous or anything, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. Besides, I haven’t gotten nearly enough sleep yet. I don’t think I have it in me right now to pace.”

They chat about the Hawks’ season while they wait for Brent to come back, and it’s nice. When Brent returns with water and something to eat for all of them he seems to have calmed down a  little bit, and if the way he leans against Andrew while they have breakfast is any indication, he’s done pacing, which is a blessing if Andrew’s completely honest.

He can sense that Brent is still nervous though, so he takes his hand and squeezes it reassuringly.

“It will be fine,” he says.

Brent squeezes back and smiles at him.

 

They don’t have to wait long after that, and then they finally get to meet their daughter.

Anna is tired but okay, and the baby is… well she’s perfect. She looks tiny in Brent’s arms, and the way he looks at her makes Andrew want to sigh dreamily. It’s the same way he used to look at Carter, and it’s full of wonder and amazement and love, and it makes Andrew fall in love all over again.

“What are you going to name her?” Anna asks.

They look at each other and just as Andrew says “Kenzie.” Brent says “Belle.” Andrew laughs. “Kenzie Belle,” he says, and Brent nods.

Anna smiles at both of them. “I like it.”

 

They get to take Kenzie home a few days later, and after that it’s a whirlwind of everyone coming to see her. The dogs seem a bit wary of this new human at first, but they warm to her fast. Meanwhile they have to explain to Carter that she’s still too small to play with him. He declares her boring, but the illusion is shattered as soon as he wakes up because she cries at night, and he groggily worms his way onto Andrew’s lap while he’s sitting in the rocking chair trying to get her to fall back asleep.

Carter snuggles up to Andrew and he’s practically falling back asleep, but he still pulls faces at Kenzie, which at least distracts her for a bit. Andrew rocks them to sleep like that, and then he takes them both along back into his and Brent’s bed, because he can’t help himself.

Brent’s already up when Andrew wakes the next morning. He’s sitting with his back against the headboard, Kenzie in one arm, Carter on his other side. They’re speaking in hushed tones, and when Andrew wakes up Brent is just explaining to Carter that he used to be this small as well.

“Really?” Carter says, amazed.

“Yeah, really. She’ll get bigger though.”

“Like me?”

“Yeah. But you’ll always be her big brother. So you’ll have to take care of her.”

Carter nods, a serious expression on his face. When Andrew stirs and stretches he turns towards him and beams at him. “Daddy’s awake!” he says excitedly, and Andrew smiles at him.

“Good morning to you too Shortcake.”

“Slept well?” Brent asks, smiling down at him.

“Yeah,” Andrew says. “Really well.”

“Good.” Brent reaches out to run a hand through Andrew’s hair, and for a second they just get to smile at each other happily.

Then Carter drapes himself over Andrew. “Get up,” he insists.

Andrew laughs. “Now how’s that supposed to work if you’re on top of me?”

“Get up,” Carter says again. And he’s grinning at Andrew now. It’s the grin of a little trouble maker. Andrew has seen it in old pictures of himself, and it’s moments like this when it really strikes Andrew how much Carter is his son. And it’s not that he has ever doubted that. He’s considered Carter his from the moment he agreed to raise him, but it’s the small things, the mannerisms and characteristics, the way his smiles look so much like Andrew’s when he was a kid that really drive it home sometimes.

He doesn’t say anything though, just smiles and ruffles Carter’s hair and tickles him to get him off.

 

It’s a few days later that Saader calls him out of the blue. They’ve been texting back and forth about going home for the summer, about what they’re going to do for their Cup days, and about Carter and Kenzie, but they rarely call each other during the summer.

“What’s up?” Andrew says when he picks up, still smiling from something Carter did.

“They’re trading me,” Saader says, and Andrew can immediately hear that he’s not taking it well.

“Woah, wait a minute. Where to?”

“Columbus.”

“Well it could be worse,” Andrew says because the only thing he can do to help Saader right now is to cheer him up a little. Brent throws him a questioning look from where he’s sitting with Kenzie, and Andrew mouths “later” at him.

“I just… I thought I’d get to stay, and… and now I don’t.”

“You’ll just have to show them what you’re made of then. Make them regret it. We both know you got it in you.”

“Thanks.” Saader is sounding a little better already, and Andrew releases a breath.

“You know, if you need a few days to distract yourself you can always come up to visit. You haven’t met Kenzie yet, and I’m sure Carter would love to have you around as well.”

“I’ll think about it.” And now Andrew can hear that Saader is smiling.

“Awesome.” He grins. “Just text me when you decide to come.”

“You seem awfully sure that I’m going to come.” There’s amusement in Saader’s voice now.

“Please, you know you want to see the kids.”

“Just the kids though.”

Andrew makes an indignant sound at that, because he’s awesome, too, and Saader laughs at him.

“Maybe Seabs, too,” he concedes.

“I take it back, you’re not invited anymore.”

“Too late, Shawzy, no take-backsies!” Saader sing-songs before he hangs up with a laugh, and Andrew can’t help but feel relieved.

He puts down his phone and turns serious. It’s going to be weird without Saader. It means that Andrew is somehow the last of their group who’s still with the Hawks. And he’s definitely thankful for that, but also… he would have bet that it would be Saader, because well, what do they want with Andrew when they can have him?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Brent says.

He’s studying Shawzy, who takes a deep breath and says, “They’re trading Saader to Columbus.”

Brent’s eyebrows shoot up. “Didn’t expect that.”

“Yeah, neither did he.”

“How is he taking it?”

“I think I managed to pull him out of his thoughts a little, but he’s not happy about it.”

“I can imagine.” Brent pulls a face. “So I gather you invited him here to distract him.”

“Yeah.” Andrew shrugs. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Brent smiles. “We better make sure we have enough food in the house then. And that he can actually sleep in the guest room.”

Andrew just nods with a smile of his own.

 

Saader does end up coming to Kelowna as soon as contract negotiations and the basic first PR things in Columbus are done. Andrew takes Kenzie along to pick him up, to give Brent and Carter some time on their own. They’re engrossed in some building project when Andrew leaves, and it’s probably better to keep Kenzie away from that to avoid destruction and mayhem. She is amicable enough today, and while she seems a little overwhelmed by the airport, she’s looking around with interest.

Andrew greets Saader with a one-armed hug when he walks out of baggage claim.

“It’s good to see you,” he says and Saader smiles.

“It’s good to be here. You were right, I can definitely use a distraction.”

“That’s me,” Andrew says easily. “I’m always right about stuff like that.”

“And you must be Kenzie,” Saader bends down a little so his face is level with Kenzie’s, who’s strapped to Andrew’s chest. She gurgles a little and reaches for his nose, and Saader laughs. He extends a finger towards her that she immediately tries to grab. “It’s nice to meet you,” he adds, because trust Saader to say something like that to a baby.

 

Andrew tells him about their summer so far as he drives them home, anything but hockey, and he can see from the way Saader’s shoulders relax that he’s glad about it.

Kenzie’s fast asleep when they get home, and Andrew has to sigh because they’ll probably be up half the night with her now. He eases her out of her car seat, cautious not to wake her up and leads Saader into the house. Judging by the silence that greets them the building project from earlier is finished, so he just shows Saader to the guest room to put down his bag and then leads him out onto the back porch.

Brent is sitting on the steps down to the lawn, a magazine in his lap and the dogs at his feet, watching Carter as he’s playing in the sandbox they set up for him. He looks up when he hears their steps and gets up to greet them.

“It’s good to see you,” he tells Saader. “How was the flight?”

“Good,” Saader says, and at the sound of his voice Carter looks up and breaks into a happy grin.

“Bren!” he shouts excitedly as he scrambles out of the sandbox and runs over to them. Saader quickly steps down onto the lawn and squats down to catch him.

“Hey Carter,” he says. “How are you?”

“Good!”

Saader quickly gets pulled into playing with Carter after that, and he seems completely fine with squatting in the sandbox with him to build a sandcastle, while Andrew sits down next to Brent, Kenzie still on his arm, content to rest his head against Brent’s shoulder.

Brent smiles and wraps an arm around Andrew’s waist. “So what’s the verdict?” he asks softly.

“He definitely needs the distraction,” Andrew says. “It’s already better now, but he was really tense when he got off the plane.” Kenzie stirs and wakes up in his arms, and he shifts her weight a little.

Brent leans over and smiles at her. “You helped, didn’t you?” Kenzie lets out one of her gurgling baby laughs and Brent’s smile grows wider. “Who could say no to you, right?” He tickles her belly with his finger to make her laugh more, before he settles back again and they lapse into comfortable silence.

 

Later, after dinner, when the kids are finally in bed, the three of them sit around the table on the porch with beers and talk.

“So what happened?” Brent asks. “I mean the last thing we heard was that everyone involved wanted to make it work.”

Saader shrugs. “I was just as blindsided as you were. One day my agent tells me he’s still negotiating with them, the next I’m told that they’re trading me to Columbus.”

“Ouch,” Andrew says, pulling a face. “That’s harsh even by NHL standards.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Have you talked to anyone on the team yet?” Brent says. “Apart from the front office, I mean.”

“Yeah, a couple of the guys texted me to welcome me to the team. They seem nice…” He trails off, sounding a little unconvinced.

“But they’re not the Hawks, right?” Andrew says, because he gets it. If he was in Saader’s place he’d feel like that, too. Hell, as things stand he already knows he’ll feel weird about walking into the locker room for training camp, knowing that Saader won’t be there.

“Yeah,” Saader says with a crooked smile that looks more like a grimace.

“You’ll do well with them,” Brent says. “You won’t be Jonny’s rookie anymore, not even the man-child. You’ll just be Saader. And you’ll show them what you can do.

Andrew nods along with that, and Saader ducks his head at the praise.

There’s silence for a moment and then Saader sighs and says, “Maybe it’s better this way. I get to show that I’m not one of the young guys anymore, grow up a little, develop my game, things like that.”

“Eh, you’re plenty grown up.” Andrew grins.

Saader smiles softly. “Not like you are.”

Andrew ducks his head and Brent squeezes his knee under the table. When Andrew looks up at him there’s a soft smile on his face and pride in his eyes. Andrew can’t argue with it so he doesn’t and just entwines their fingers.

“I had some great help,” he says finally, because it’s true, and he wouldn’t be here without Brent, and Carter, and their family and friends.

 

Saader stays a week, and by then Brent and Andrew have to leave for the Blackhawks Convention. They drive to the airport together, and by the time their ways part Saader seems a lot more like the guy Andrew calls his best friend again. He’s glad to see it, and he thinks Saader will be fine in Columbus. It will be weird, sure, but they’ve been through it before with Bollig, Leddy and Smitty, they’ll manage this, too.

 

The convention is fun, even if the house feels empty without kids or dogs.

At one of the panels someone asks Andrew who his best friend on the team is and he almost says Saader. But he catches himself before it can slip out and goes with a joke about all his friends being traded instead.

He doesn’t realise that Brent hears it until they’re home that evening and he says, “You know I’m not going anywhere?”

Andrew looks up from untying his shoes, a surprised look on his face. It takes him a moment to understand what Brent’s saying, but then he smiles.

“I know,” he says. “But you’re my husband, not my friend.”

Brent smiles softly. “Still not leaving though.”

Andrew straightens up and steps close to him. Brent’s arms wrap around his waist, and Andrew says, “That’s good then, because I wouldn’t let you if you tried.”

There’s a chuckle from Brent that Andrew cuts off with a kiss, because well, he definitely means it.

 

They fly back to Kelowna right after the convention so they’re home for Andrew’s birthday.

Kenzie of course has no idea about that and Andrew’s about to get up to give her her bottle, when Brent presses a quick kiss to his shoulder and says, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” Andrew smiles and burrows back into his pillow to sleep some more.

When he wakes up again he’s alone and starfished across the bed. He rolls over and sighs. He had kind of hoped to have Brent in bed with him, but life doesn’t seem to want to indulge his whims, even on his birthday.

His musings about the unfairness of it all are interrupted by a sound at the door that makes him sit up a little.

The door opens slowly and a small face peaks around it into the room. It’s Carter, who beams when he sees that Andrew’s awake, and comes in. He comes over to the bed, and climbs onto it. Andrew sits up fully and so Carter crawls into his lap still beaming.

“Well done, Shortcake,” Andrew tells him.

There’s another sound from the door at that moment, and when Andrew looks up Brent is standing there, a tray in his hands. He smiles at Andrew, and well, Andrew can forgive him for getting up already.

“I hope he didn’t wake you,” Brent says.

Andrew shakes his head. “I was already awake. Just hadn’t gotten up yet.”

“Good.” Brent puts the tray down on his nightstand, where Carter can’t reach it immediately, and Andrew can see that he laid out an entire breakfast on it. “Give me a second, I’ll just go fetch Kenzie.”

Andrew nods and then he quickly distracts Carter before he can even think about trying to get to the breakfast tray, even if he gets it, just the sight of it makes his stomach growl.

Brent comes back with Kenzie on his arm, and joins them on the bed.

“So now that we’re all here, what did we want to tell daddy?” he says.

Carter turns where Andrew is holding him in his lap and says, “Happy birthday, daddy!” From the sound of it he practised the words with Brent, which makes Andrew smile warmly. He pulls Carter in for a hug.

“Thank you, Shortcake.”

Brent leans over when Carter has settled in next to Andrew and gives him a kiss. “Happy birthday, babe,” he says. “Kenzie has a surprise for you.”

He hands her over to Andrew, who laughs at the card she’s holding. One of the corners has somehow found its way into her mouth, so it’s a bit soggy, and Andrew has to wrestle it from her little hands, but she’s sleepily blinking up at him and he can’t even be mad.

He puts her down in his lap and opens the card. A note falls out that Andrew puts to the side in favour of reading the card itself first. Inside Brent has written a simple “Happy Birthday”. There’s a small handprint from Kenzie and a scribble from Carter underneath and then at the very bottom Brent has signed it himself.

“You should read the note,” Brent says while Andrew is still smiling at the birthday card.

Andrew picks it back up and folds it open.

“Coupon For One Romantic Birthday Dinner” it says. Andrew raises an eyebrow at Brent

“So do I get to decide when this happens?” he asks

“Not exactly, no.” And Brent is definitely smirking now. “Everything’s already organised. You just have to show up.”

“Then it’s a date, I guess.” Andrew smiles widely at Brent, who returns the smile.

“Anyways,” Brent says finally. “I think we wanted to have breakfast.”

 

They have breakfast in bed, which they will probably regret later, and it’s a little messy with a toddler and a baby, but it’s also one of the nicest birthday mornings Andrew has had so far.

 

Andrew spends most of the day teaching Carter to swim (which has been an ongoing project all summer) and napping with Kenzie. Brent’s dad picks up the kids in the late afternoon, and Brent sends Andrew upstairs to change his clothes.

Andrew spends about 20 minutes fielding phone calls from family and team mates, almost as soon as he gets to the bedroom. It’s obvious that this is planned from the way Duncs can’t hide his amusement when he calls to the fact that Andrew gets a call from Kaner, who has not only never called him for his birthday before, but also texted him already. Not to mention that Andrew can hear Jonny in the back when he’s talking to Kaner, just to be called by him only seconds after they hang up.

It’s a little ridiculous, but Andrew thinks it’s adorable that Brent went through the effort to get everyone in on this.

The calls finally taper off so Andrew can change and get ready. Brent had told him to dress nicely before he went up, so Andrew makes an effort and puts on a suit and makes his hair look presentable. He’s been growing it out a little, mostly because he hasn’t really had time to get it cut, but Brent loves it, so it’s definitely staying now.

Brent actually texts him to tell him that he can come down, and Andrew has to stop himself from fondly rolling his eyes.

Still, he gives himself a last one over in the mirror and goes back downstairs.

 

Brent has changed as well, and Andrew is maybe a little impressed with how well Brent has planned this.

“I hear I’m getting a romantic birthday dinner,” Andrew says.

Brent smiles. “You heard right then.” Brent takes his hand and leads him out onto the porch where he has set the table. He has gone for a classic candle light dinner atmosphere, and the sun is only beginning to set, but the candles are already lit, and together with the flowers Brent has put on the table, it looks really nice.

Dinner itself is not overly fancy, and Andrew is fine with that. Then again Brent could have gotten pizza delivered and Andrew would have been happy with it, because he has Brent all to himself this evening. It’s a rare enough occurrence with the kids around, and he intends to enjoy every moment of it.

So does Brent from the looks of it. They take their time with dinner, and by the time they’re done the sun has set and the moon is in the sky. Brent takes Andrew down to the lake shore.

“I have another surprise,” he says, and damn Andrew can’t wait.

There’s a couple of trees down by the lake. They got married close to them, and Andrew really likes to lie underneath them, dozing while the sun is high in the sky. It’s a pretty amazing place to not get sunburnt too badly. This is where Brent leads him now, and as they get closer Andrew can see why.

There’s a hammock between two of the trees. Andrew has no idea when and how Brent managed to put this up without him noticing, but he already loves it. Brent’s watching him with a smile when Andrew looks over at him, and Andrew just has to step in front of him and pull his head down so he can kiss him.

“We’re still not having sex in a hammock though,” Andrew says when they part. Brent looks confused for a second, but then he starts laughing.

“I didn’t think so,” he says, finally. “I mean, we wouldn’t even fall softly this time. I don’t think I’d want to risk it.”

Andrew grins. “You know what we can do with this hammock though?”

“I think I’ve got a fairly good idea.” Brent’s smirk is slow and sexy and god… Andrew needs to kiss him like right now.

 

They have Brent’s day with the Cup on Carter’s birthday. It’s a beautiful day, and they take the Cup around Kelowna for a bit, but the main focus is Carter’s birthday party.

He seems to love every second of it. And while a lot of people fawn over Kenzie, because well, she’s a baby, Carter is without a doubt the centre of attention.

 

Andrew’s day with the Cup is a few days later in Ontario. They take the Cup around a lot of his old favourite places, before their private party in Andrew’s parents’ garden. Most of the family is there, plus a bunch of Andrew’s old buddies. And then there’s Chaunette.

Chaunette used to be Andrew’s girlfriend back in high school and Andrew can be objective enough to know that they were great together. They’d probably still be if Andrew hadn’t realised that he’s more into guys than girls. He’s happy to see her, because whatever happened, he still likes her as a friend, even though they haven’t seen much of each other since graduation.

“Chauny!” He grins and hugs her when he sees her. “I didn’t know you were around!”

She smiles. “I met Darlene at the grocery store the other day and she invited me.”

“She always liked you.”

“So how about you? I hear you’re married with kids these days.”

“Yeah, that kinda happened.” Andrew smiles. He catches Brent’s eye across the lawn and as soon as he does Brent comes over towards them. He’s smiling but when he reaches them his arm slides possessively around Andrew’s waist. It probably looks like an affectionate gesture, but Andrew knows him too well to buy it.

“Brent, this is Chaunette, Chaunette this is Brent,” he says. “Chaunette and I used to date back in high school,” he adds for Brent’s sake, and he doesn’t think he imagines Brent’s arm tightening ever so slightly around him. He has to resist rolling his eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Chaunette says. “Darlene seemed really eager I get to know you when she invited me.”

Brent is amicable enough, but his arm never leaves Andrew’s waist, and Andrew’s fairly sure he needs to have a talk with him about this later.

They’re going to be in Ontario for a couple days so Andrew exchanges phone numbers with Chaunette so they can meet and catch up.

When they’re in bed that evening (and thank god Andrew’s parents decided to renovate his room), Andrew rolls over so he can see Brent and says, “So what was that thing with Chaunette earlier?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Brent says, far too casually.

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “We both know that that was not nothing.”

“I just didn’t want her to get any ideas. You seemed… friendly.”

Andrew has to blink, because… what? But then he understands and he has to laugh. “Are you jealous of Chauny?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny about this,” Brent grumbles.

Andrew smiles and reaches for his hand. “There is literally nothing to be jealous of. She’s a friend, nothing more.”

“A friend you used to date.” It’s Brent’s turn to raise his eyebrow now.

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Yeah, for like a couple of weeks until I realised that I loved hanging out with her, but I’d much rather kiss the hot guy on the football team, if he wouldn’t knock me out for it.”

Brent blinks. “Oh,” he says.

“Yeah. Oh.”

“So how did she react when you told her?”

“We stayed friends. She was the only one at school who knew for some time. It was convenient that people thought we were together for the longest time, even if we weren’t.” Andrew does a little half-shrug.

“So why don’t you see each other anymore?”

“That was just one of these post-high school things. She moved to Toronto to go to college, I went into pro-hockey. There wasn’t much time to meet up, so we kind of lost track of each other. Today was the first time we’ve seen each other since the summer we graduated.”

Brent’s silent for a moment, but then he says, “She seems nice. I’m glad you had her in your corner back then.”

Andrew smiles softly at him. “I was glad too, back then. It was good to have her around.”

Andrew has to snicker when Brent yawns all of a sudden. He moves in, until he’s cuddled up to him. “Time to sleep, babe,” he says, and all he gets in return is a grumble from Brent.

 

Going into training camp that year is weird, and Andrew knows that everyone is feeling it to some extent.

It’s one thing to lose Leddy, Bollig and Smitty over time, it’s a whole other thing to lose both Saader and Sharpy in the same summer. Andrew does his best not to resent it, it’s a business, he has known that for some time, and sometimes tough decisions have to be made. But he doesn’t think he quite manages to accept it in the beginning.

He likes Anisimov, Panarin and Tikhonov well enough, even if it’s kind of hard to have a conversation with a guy who doesn’t speak English yet. But he keeps looking at them and thinking that Saader and Sharpy should be here, because this is where they belong.

And with any new teammate there’s that moment where Andrew wonders how they will react to the realities of the Hawks locker room. Will it be an issue that he’s married to Brent? Will it be an issue that Jonny and Pat are together? Neither are secrets by any means, but Andrew has no illusions about the fact that there’s still a lot of assholes out there.

But on the first day of camp he takes one look at Tikhonov and Panarin, and he realises that this won’t be an issue. At least not in the way Andrew had feared. Because from the looks of it they’re going to have to deal with another couple in the locker room. He’s sure the others are thrilled.

It takes him a few days to truly get into the spirit of things again, but soon enough he’s back to his usual self. The first time he calls Panarin the Breadman Brent smiles at him from across the locker room, laughter lines crinkling around his eyes. Andrew can see the relief in his expression, and he realises that Brent had been worried. He smiles back, reassuringly, because really, he’s fine.

 

They get to take the Cup to a Bears game before their first pre-season game, and it’s all a big family trip. Brent carries Carter around the entire time they spend on the field, and for some reason Jonny and Pat seem a little obsessed. They stick to Brent like moths to a candle, joking around and talking to Carter. Andrew has to roll his eyes, because he doesn’t know who they think they’re fooling.

Andrew himself stands back a bit, Kenzie on his arm. She seems a little overwhelmed, which Andrew absolutely gets. He’d be overwhelmed by all of this too, if he was only three months old. He distracts her a little, and at least she doesn’t look like she’s going to cry any time soon. Then again, neither did she the last few times she did that.

He gets unexpected help from Tikhs and Panarin, who may not have won the Cup with the rest of them, but got to come along anyways. They’ve brought Tikh’s son Lev along, who’s a year or two older than Carter is, and he’s looking around with interest.

It’s actually the Breadman, who comes up to Andrew first, wide smile on his face, and an excited spring in his step. Tikhs is a few paces behind him, and Panini seems to be eagerly awaiting his arrival. He starts talking in rapid-fire Russian as soon as Tikhi is there, a wide grin on his face. Andrew looks a little helplessly at Tikhs, who waits for Artemi to finish. There’s a long-suffering, but ultimately fond look on his face that Andrew’s fairly sure he has seen on Brent’s face before.

“He says your daughter is adorable,” Tikhs explains. “In a lot more words than that, but that was the gist of it.”

“Thanks.” Andrew smiles at Panarin and is met with a broad grin.

“She принцесса,” the Breadman says.

“Princess,” Viktor helps out, and Artemi nods eagerly before he says something else in Russian. Tikhs laughs at it and translates, “We’re not supposed to tell the other girls so they won’t get jealous.”

“Promise,” Andrew says with a laugh. Artemi gives him a thumbs up and then he leans in to tickle Kenzie and coos at her in Russian, which delights Kenzie to no end.

 

 

The season finally starts and it’s not long before Saader returns to Chicago as a Blue Jacket.

It’s weird to see his best friend on the opposing team. Andrew doesn’t even get to talk to him before the game, because it’s the second part of a back to back for the Blue Jackets. They’ve got plans for him to come along to Brent’s and Andrew’s place afterwards though, and Andrew’s really looking forward to it.

They win the game 4-1 and it’s probably not surprising they do. Andrew has kept an eye on Columbus’ season so far, and this just seems to be the way things are going for them this year. He wishes he could help Saader with this, because he deserves to show everyone what kind of player the Hawks thought they didn’t need anymore.

 

Saader seems resigned about the loss when he meets them outside the home locker room after the game. Jonny and Patrick are standing with him when Andrew comes out of the locker room, but all he catches is Jonny giving Saader a clap on the shoulder and his patented “I know you can do this” look. Saader may be in Columbus now, but he can still count on all of them when he needs it.

Andrew and Brent have an unspoken agreement not to bring the game up on the drive to their house, and so they keep the conversation light. They catch Saader up on Carter and Kenzie, talk about the dogs, ask him about his parents and his brother, anything but hockey.

Only when they’re all sitting at the kitchen table, plates of food and bottles of beer in front of them, does Andrew ask, “How are you holding up?”

“What do you think?” Brandon’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “We suck, and we can’t seem to change anything about it. I wanted to show everyone that it was a mistake to trade me, but I can’t even make a difference.”

Andrew reaches out to grasp his arm. “Look at me, Saader. That’s not on you alone. There’s still an entire hockey team out there with you. They may have given you a big contract because they think you can do amazing things for them, but you’re not the only one on that team.”

Brent takes over seamlessly. “Andrew’s right. It sucks. Believe me, I know how much it sucks. But you can’t let that affect you too much. As long as you’re fighting you’ve got a chance. But you can’t put all of this on your own shoulders. That’s why it’s a team.”

“We all know that you’re worth what they’re paying you,” Andrew adds. “They know that, too. But neither we nor they are going to believe that it’s all on you.”

This time Saader’s smile actually looks like a smile. “Thanks guys, I try to remember that but sometimes it’s not enough.”

“Then it’s good you have us to remind you sometimes.”

Saader just nods.

 

Duncs goes on IR not long after the game against Columbus. His knee has been bothering him ever since the playoffs and even _he_ had to crack eventually and admit that he needs surgery.

Brent seems relieved about it. Andrew hasn’t witnessed all of their arguments, but he knows that Brent has been on Duncs’ case ever since he has caught on. Andrew doesn’t like seeing Brent worried so he’s glad that he doesn’t have to watch it any longer.

The one downside to the whole thing is that Duncs has a tendency to come to their place when he gets too bored at home, which means that they end up with a lump of bored hockey player on their couch far more often than planned. At least Carter loves having his Uncle Duncs around, and he’s fine with playing with the kids as much as his knee allows.

Andrew knows from Brent that Duncs has been feeling a little antsy at home ever since he and Kelly Rae got divorced last summer. Andrew kind of gets it, he thinks, it can’t be easy, and considering that Colton is with his mother most of the time, it must feel weird to be on his own.

 

Meanwhile Kaner goes on a tear and seems determined to break records. His line with Arty and Panarin is playing really well together, and everyone is kind of in awe about the points they’re putting up, while Jonny just radiates pride.

They’re playing well all things considered and they definitely can’t complain right now.

 

The Hawks’ family skate is in mid-December, and Carter is really excited for it this year. He seems eager to get to skate, even though he has barely started to learn.

Andrew shares amused looks with Brent whenever Carter brings it up, even if he’s asking them about it for what feels like the hundredth time that day. They can indulge him this much.

On the day itself Carter is up early. Ever since the summer he has taken to getting up on his own and coming to their bedroom to either wake them up or at least crawl into bed with them whenever they’re home. Some mornings they’re seriously doubting their decision to get him a bed that allows that for his birthday, but for the most part they’re fine with the additional child in their bed. There’s worse things to wake up to.

The morning of the family skate is one of the ones when both of them would prefer not to have him open the door and crawl into their bed with them.

He’s already excited and hyped up and frankly Andrew asks himself where he gets the energy from. Brent the traitor opens one eye when Carter crawls up the bed, groans and turns to hide his face in his pillow to go back to sleep.

Andrew sighs and grabs Carter. He’s not entirely awake himself, because Kenzie had decided that she needed her diaper changed in the middle of the night, so he lies back down, wrapping Carter in his arms.

“It’s still early, go back to sleep,” he says.

“But skate!” Carter says, looking at him with big eyes.

“It’s still hours until we go. If you sleep it will pass much faster.”

“But daddy!”

Andrew sighs again. “Let’s make a deal. You sleep some more and we’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”

Carter thinks about it for a moment, but then he nods, because he can never say no to pancakes. But because he’s still Carter he asks “Lots?”

Luckily Andrew’s had this argument with him far too often. “As many as we can eat,” he says. Carter nods again and squirms around until he’s comfortable and closes his eyes, a serious expression on his face. Andrew just releases a breath and closes his eyes, too.

When he wakes up again both Carter and Brent are still fast asleep. Andrew cautiously gets out of bed, and Carter rolls towards the closest source of warmth he can find and curls into Brent’s body. It’s so adorable Andrew has to sneak a quick photo with his phone before he tiptoes to the bathroom so he doesn’t disturb them.

After a quick shower and brushing his teeth he checks in on Kenzie, who’s awake and smiles as soon as she sees him. He picks her up and takes her with him as he goes down to the kitchen to get started on breakfast.

He gets coffee for himself, gets the dogs their water and kibble and feeds Kenzie and then he makes the pancake batter. But when neither Brent nor Carter have turned up by the time Andrew’s done, he grabs a cup of coffee for Brent, picks Kenzie up again and they go to wake the rest of the family.

Carter acts like he’s still asleep when Andrew comes in, but he can’t hide his small grin. Andrew puts down Brent’s coffee on his bedside table and moves around to his own side of the bed to sit down before he softly pokes Carter. Carter opens his eyes and grins up at him. He rolls over towards Andrew and stage-whispers, “Food!”

“In a bit, Shortcake,” Andrew says. “We just got to wake your dad first.”

Carter nods at that and Andrew bends over to kiss Brent’s temple and softly shake his shoulder. “You should wake up, babe. You’ve slept long enough.”

Brent groans something into his pillow, but he doesn’t show any signs of waking up. “I mean it, babe,” Andrew says with a laugh. “I brought you coffee, and there’s pancakes for breakfast.”

Carter sidles up to them and crawls on top of Brent. “Daddy get up,” he says.

Brent groans again, but this time it sounds resigned and he turns his head to crack an eye open.

“Can you get him off, please?” he says, voice gravelly with sleep. Andrew smiles and lifts Carter off Brent so he can turn around and stretch. He blinks a bit and Andrew leans in to brush another kiss to his forehead.

“Coffee’s on the bedside table,” he says, and Brent smiles and lifts his head a little to press a quick kiss to Andrew’s lips.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now you wake up a little, while I go make pancakes.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

Andrew nods, and gets up from the bed again. He picks up Kenzie and Carter, who babbles at him excitedly about food and skating.

Andrew sits Carter down on the counter, close enough to watch but not close enough to be in range of batter and stove, while Kenzie goes in her seat. He talks to both of them as he makes pancakes, even if Kenzie doesn’t contribute much more than babbling to the conversation. Carter’s limited vocabulary is enough for them to have a slightly one-sided conversation though, and he’s always eager to try out new words.

He’s trying to learn how to pronounce Zamboni this morning for some reason, and by the time Brent walks with his empty mug, he can manage a decent “boni” at least. Andrew shrugs helplessly at Brent’s questioning eyebrow.

Brent takes over with Carter while Andrew works on finishing up with the pancakes.

 

By the time they’re all ready and leave for the family skate, Carter has calmed down a bit, but Andrew doesn’t hold out too much hope that it stays that way.

And true to form, Carter tries to run off as soon as Andrew has gotten him out of his car seat and his feet touch the ground. Luckily Andrew doesn’t let go of him and takes his hand in his own so he can’t run away.

“Patience,” he says. “We’ll get there soon enough. We told you, no running off.”

“But ice!” Carter tries to argue.

“The ice won’t run away. We’re going in together.”

Carter sighs heavily, but he stays with Andrew which is a small victory. Brent’s got Kenzie already in her stroller, so they just grab their skates and then they’re off towards the others.

They walk in with Hammer and Elina, and Carter immediately zeroes in on Theo, while the adults chat.

As excited as he was all day Carter is all seriousness and focus as soon as they actually get to the rink and ready to go onto the ice. There’s a moment when he stops and looks at them, unsure, before he asks, “Kenzie?”

“I got her,” Andrew says with a smile as he lifts her onto his arm. “But she’s too small to skate herself, yet.”

Carter nods and then he lets Brent lift him up to carry him out onto the ice. They skate around a bit first, kids on their arms, Andrew’s free hand in Brent’s. They say hello to the others, chat a few moments and then they find a mostly free patch of rink to put Carter down on his skates.

“Remember how we practiced?” Brent asks him. “I’ll keep your hands in mine so you can’t fall down.”

Carter nods, seriously, and Brent finally puts him down. His first strides are tentative, but he remembers how to do it pretty quickly and Brent lets him go on his own a few meters until he bumps into Andrew’s leg and gets a hold of his pants.

Andrew smiles down at him. “Good?” he says and Carter nods emphatically. Andrew takes one of his hands in his, while Brent takes the other and they skate around like that, slowly with Carter between them, smiling at each other.

Carter gets a bit bored with it soon and wants to go faster. They stop for a moment so Brent can take over Kenzie, while Andrew takes Carter for a slightly faster round around the rink.

“Not Kenzie?” Carter asks before they go off, his little face scrunched up in confusion.

“She’s too small,” Andrew explains. “It would get too dangerous. Maybe next year, when she’s bigger.”

Carter seems a little disappointed, but he says “Next year” and they push off.

They’re still not going fast by any means, but it’s fast enough to satisfy Carter and to tire him out enough that he wants to be picked up again. Andrew indulges him by letting him sit on his shoulders while they go for a faster round, Andrew’s hands wrapped firmly around Carters legs.

It’s fun and by the time they get home that evening, both kids are tired and there’s no fuss about going to bed for once.

 

Brent finds Andrew in Kenzie’s nursery, smiling down at her as she sleeps peacefully, and he wraps his arms around his waist from behind.

“You seem pensive,” he whispers, so he doesn’t disturb her.

“Just thinking about stuff,” Andrew replies.

“Must be good stuff then.” He can hear the smile in Brent’s voice.

“Very good stuff,” he just says. He turns around in Brent’s arms and leans up to kiss him, smile still on his lips.

“Let’s go to bed,” Brent murmurs when Andrew pulls back. “We have a game tomorrow.”

Andrew nods and with a last smile for the sleeping baby in her crib, he follows him to their bedroom.

He lies awake for a bit, even after they’ve turned off the lights, and he doesn’t even realise that Brent’s awake, too until he rolls over and pulls Andrew close.

“You’re still thinking,” he says, observant as ever. “You gonna share with the class?”

Andrew hums. “It’s just an idea I’m throwing around.” He pauses and Brent waits patiently for him to continue. “What would you say about having another kid?” Andrew says finally. “Not now of course, more in a year or two.”

“Three kids, eh?”

Andrew shrugs. “It feels like a good number.”

Brent’s silent for a moment, but then Andrew can feel him shrug as well. “Why not. I mean, we still got time to think about it.”

“Yeah.” Andrew smiles into his chest and closes his eyes, falling asleep surrounded by Brent.

 

Their last game before the Christmas break is in Dallas. It’s their first game against Sharpy and it’s…weird. He has been one of them for so long that apart from Brent and Duncs maybe, no one actually remembers a time before him, and he was such an integral part of their locker room that they have felt his loss these past few months. Playing against him just drives all of that home again.

He’s outside their locker room after practice and as soon as Brent catches wind of it, he peeks out around the door, and then he’s off down the hallway to crush Sharpy in a hug, Duncs not far behind.

Andrew follows at a more leisurely pace with Jonny and Patrick and a few others, but even from a distance he can see that Sharpy’s smile is a little wonky. It seems like he missed them just as much as they missed him.

“So who’s keeping the Cap on his toes in my absence?” Sharpy asks once he has pulled himself together a little.

“There have been some valiant efforts, but I think Andrew did the best job so far,” Brent says, throwing Andrew a quick smile.

“You’re biased. Someone else get me an objective opinion on this.”

“No he’s right,” Kaner says. “Shawzy’s attempts were the best ones so far.”

Sharpy grins and claps Andrew on the back. “How are you doing it, Mutt?”

“Sticking to the classics.” Andrew grins back. “It’s hard to believe but he still falls for those.”

“I don’t!” Jonny protests.

Pat laughs at him. “Yes, you do.”

“Ah that’s our Captain Serious,” Sharpy says warmly. “Still falling for the same old tricks.”

They don’t chat long after that, they’ve all got lunches and pre-game naps to get to, but they manage to mostly catch up, and all of them are kind of reluctant to part ways, because they’re all reminded of how Sharpy is missing from their locker room in all his tangible and intangible ways.

The Stars completely destroy them in a 4-0 shutout loss that evening, which feels a bit like rubbing salt into the wound, but for once it stings less for some of them than playing against one of their own does.

 

They’re having a big family Christmas again this year. Just with their parents this time, but it’s enough to fill the house and to occupy Carter’s and Kenzie’s every waking moment. Especially Carter is thrilled to see his grandparents.

To their endless relief it also means that while he wakes up early on Christmas Day, he crawls into bed with Andrew and Brent and falls back asleep almost immediately. Andrew barely even registers that he’s there until he wakes up properly a while later and finds him curled into his chest. Brent’s watching them with a smile, and he leans over for a good morning kiss when he sees Andrew’s awake, cautious not to disturb Carter.

“He came in earlier, crawled up to you and fell right back asleep,” he whispers.

Andrew smiles, he’s still got his arm wrapped around Carter, cradling him to his chest. “I think having his grandparents here was too much excitement to get up for presents yet,” he whispers back.

Brent laughs softly. “I was gonna get up now. Or should I wait until we’ve woken up Carter?”

“Go ahead. I’ll get him out of bed.”

Brent nods and leans in for another quick kiss.

“Merry Christmas,” he says before he finally gets up.

“Merry Christmas.”

Andrew waits until he’s gone before he strokes along Carter’s back and says softly, “Hey, Shortcake, wake up.” Carter tries to bury deeper into Andrew’s chest, but Andrew doesn’t give in. “Don’t you want to see what Santa brought?” he asks.

 Carter sighs heavily, stretches and opens his eyes. Andrew smiles at him. “Ready to get up now?”

“Pwesents,” Carter says sleepily.

Andrew laughs. “You’ll get your presents. But first we’ll have to check if your grandparents are awake yet, okay?”

“Okay.” Carter already sounds more awake, and when Andrew moves away and gets up he immediately raises his arms to be picked up.

 

The Christmas break always feels too short, and it’s no different this year. By the time they have to get back to work Andrew is mentally dragging his feet a little. He’d love to stay at home with the kids, but there’s nothing he can do about it.


	4. Baby When You're Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in between everything else they start considering the very real possibility that they’re not going to be playing on the same team next year. Neither of them actually wants to talk about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Bryan Adams feat. Mel C - When You're Gone

They get another break from playing hockey in late January for the All-Star Game, and they decide to take the kids to Colorado on a short winter vacation.

It’s almost two years since Brent’s proposal, and they’re staying at the same cabin as they did back then. It’s just like Andrew remembers it, and he finds that he still loves it.

They take the kids sledding, and while Kenzie doesn’t seem too fond of the cold, at least Carter loves every minute. It’s not much of a vacation in some ways, and they barely get to relax, but it’s fun and it’s some much needed time just with the kids away from Chicago and any obligations. They get to sleep in and have a late breakfast, and then for once they can indulge in doing whatever they want. And in the evenings Andrew gets to cuddle up to Brent on the couch, and enjoy a relaxing evening without the thought of their next game at the back of his mind. There’s worse ways to fill his evenings.

 

Somewhere in between everything else they start considering the very real possibility that they’re not going to be playing on the same team next year. Andrew’s on the last year of his contract, and they know the Hawks’ cap situation well enough to know that it’s probably also his last year as a Hawk.

Neither of them actually wants to talk about it. They skirt around the topic for weeks, aware that they have to talk about it, but neither willing to address it.

It’s Andrew who brings it up in the end, mostly because the trade deadline is approaching and he’s not going to feel safe about it until it has passed.

He finally brings it up with Brent one evening. “I think we should at least have an idea of how we’re going to handle things when I leave,” he says. “I know we can’t make any plans as long as we don’t know where I’m going but we should have an idea at least.”

He can see that Brent is reluctant to talk about it, but he sighs and nods. “Yeah, maybe we should. Even though I don’t think it’s a safe bet to say you will get traded.” He doesn’t look like he actually believes the last part, but Andrew lets it slide. It’s the thought that counts.

“Yes. But as long as we have talked about it we’re at least prepared.”

And it’s not like they can actually make a lot of plans at this point, but Andrew feels a little better about figuring out how to deal with parenting two kids and two dogs as hockey players in a long-distance relationship.

“We should probably ask Liz to move in,” Brent says. “I mean, I could probably make it work on my own, but I’d feel better about it if I had her as a back-up. If she’s okay with that at least.”

Andrew nods. “It’s probably for the best if we do.”

“You’re taking the dogs with you though. Those two are enough trouble on their own, and you’re gonna need someone to keep the house from being too silent.”

“I… yeah, I’ll do that.” Andrew has to swallow. He didn’t want to suggest it, because he didn’t want to take the dogs away from the kids, but he’s glad Brent brought it up, because he knows he’ll need the company. They lapse into silence, but then Brent wraps his arms around Andrew and pulls him as close as he can, burying his nose in Andrew’s hair.

“I hate talking about you leaving,” he says.

Andrew wraps his arms around Brent and holds on. “I hate it, too, babe. I wish we didn’t have to, but we both know the way things are looking right now.”

“Stupid NHL.”

“In this case, yes.”

“Just in this case?”

Andrew laughs. “Well no. But there’s things that are pretty amazing about it.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I got to meet you and play on a team with you for one.”

Brent’s still holding on to him like a large human-shaped octopus, so Andrew can’t see his expression, but he’s pretty sure it’s firmly in “sappy smile” territory when Brent says, “You’re right, that bit is pretty amazing.”

They sleep wrapped so tightly around each other that night that it should be uncomfortable, but neither of them is willing to relax their hold even a little. They both need this right now.

 

The trade deadline passes and Andrew releases a breath because it looks like he won’t have to explain to his kids yet that he has to leave them to play hockey somewhere else.

 

Meanwhile, Kenzie has been teething and it’s not easy on any of them. Carter’s a little grumpy, so Andrew takes him to the zoo on one of their off days in late March. The little guy absolutely loves it. He’s excited about practically every single animal they see, and Andrew has to explain a couple of times that no, they can’t have a lion as a pet.

“What about Charlie and Bailey?” he asks, mildly. “We already have the two of them, where would the lion live?”

“Garden!” Carter says, because of course he already has an answer for that.

“Lions are from Africa though, they like it warm. I don’t think it would be very happy outside in winter.”

Carter thinks about it for a moment, and finally says, “Maybe no lion.”

“Yeah,” Andrew agrees.

 

When they go to the zoo shop afterwards, Carter picks a book about the animals, and then decides that they’re getting a stuffed lion for Kenzie. Carter wants to get her the largest one available, but Andrew manages to stop him and they end with a much more reasonably sized stuffed lion for her.

“Why a lion though?” Andrew asks him when they walk out.

“Teeth,” Carter says. He had been really impressed with those when they had seen one of the lions yawn, and really, Andrew should have expected this.

“Lions are also really brave and strong,” he says. “And your sister is growing a lot of teeth right now, so she can definitely use that.”

Carter nods solemnly, and Andrew ruffles his hair as he says, “You picked well.”

Carter smiles up at him, and nods.

 

Carter gives Brent a complete rundown of their trip to the zoo when they get home, and then he insists on giving Kenzie her new toy himself. It’s still large for her, but they put it in her crib and when they put her to bed that night she snuggles up to it, clutching one of the ears in her tiny baby hands.

 

They leave for a four game road trip the next day, and while it starts out well, Brent is hit with a cold that has him sit out the game in Minnesota. Andrew nurses him through the flights to Minnesota and then on to Winnipeg, and outside of practice and the game that he obviously can’t get out of, Andrew is content to curl up in bed with Brent to watch shitty TV and provide him with liquids and cuddles. He thinks he can risk catching the same cold Brent has right now. It’s not like he wouldn’t be exposed to it anyways if they were at home.

Still, when Brent wakes up feeling human again on their second day in Winnipeg, it’s a relief to have his husband back to being himself, and to be able to hang out with the rest of the team again. Andrew loves Brent, but even he needs to spend time with people who aren’t him.

 

Unfortunately for Duncs, Brent also feels human enough again to tell him what he thought of his stick swing against Coyle. Brent’s kind of pissed about it, and Andrew got to listen to him rant about it when he was still ill, so he’s fairly sure that’s what he’s telling Duncs as well.

It doesn’t change the fact that they’ve got to play without Duncs for six games, but if it makes Brent feel better, Andrew’s not going to stop him.

 

And really, they’re in a good place right now so the last few games of the regular season should be an easy ride for them. Well, technically it is, Andrew guesses, just not for himself. He ends up sitting out the last four games of the season with an upper body injury and the deep hope that it will be healed up enough for him to play again by the time they start into the first round against the Blues.

In the meantime he gets to watch games from the press box with Carter, and spends most of his time at home, playing with the kids in a way that doesn’t make his injury any worse than it already is.

He manages to get himself cleared to play in time for game 1 against the Blues and he’s honest to god relieved at this point. It would have sucked to have to sit out any playoff game. Besides, they’re already without Duncs for the first one, and he’s fairly sure that’s more than enough players to miss out on a game.

Brent is a little exasperated when Andrew voices his thought, but for the most part he seems amused.

“I mean, I think we can deal with one missing forward and one missing d-man at the same time,” he says. “Especially if it means you get to fully recuperate from your injury, instead of just barely enough to play again.”

“It’s the playoffs, you know how it goes,” Andrew says.

“Yes. But you’re my husband, and I get to worry about you and wish for you to be healthy, don’t I?” There’s a soft, fond smile on Brent’s face as he says it, and Andrew just has to lean in to kiss him.

“Yeah okay, point taken.”

 

The series against the Blues goes about as well as a series against the Blues can go. It’s hard fought and kinda chippy, and it grates on everyone’s nerves.

 

Game 4 of the series is…not good. Andrew’s already getting close to losing his temper, which isn’t good in the first place, and the Blues absolutely use it against him.

None of that excuses what he does. He knows that. And he’s definitely not trying to use any of that to excuse using the word.

Brent’s pissed at him, and Andrew can’t fault him for it. Hell, he’s pissed at himself. He should know better than this. He should _be_ better than this.

He doesn’t check his texts. He knows there are going to be a ton of disapproving messages, and he’s definitely going to check them, but right now his own head is punishment enough.

Brent doesn’t say anything for the entire way home, but he radiates disapproval, which says more than enough. Liz is nowhere to be seen when they return, and Brent pointedly walks up the stairs without a word. Andrew follows a lot more slowly, and by the time he reaches the bedroom Brent’s already getting undressed. He’s turned away from the door, and Andrew stops for a moment, looking at his back, before he puts down his bag and grabs the shirt he’s currently sleeping in. He goes to grab his toothbrush from their en-suite, but Brent’s voice makes him stop in his tracks.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Brent’s tone is as icy as Andrew has ever heard it and it makes Andrew swallow as he turns around towards him. “I was going to sleep in the guest room.”

The look Brent gives him is decidedly unimpressed, but then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Listen, I can’t stop you from doing that,” he says. “But… I’d feel better about it if you stayed here.” He pauses, and then finally says, “If not for my sake, at least do it for Carter. He doesn’t need to be pulled into this as well.”

Andrew deflates a little. “Yeah, I… okay.”

They get ready for bed in silence after that, and Brent turns his back towards Andrew when they finally lie down.

Brent’s breath evens out fairly quickly, while Andrew keeps turning on his side of the bed, trying to find sleep that won’t come to him.

He finally falls asleep, but he wakes up early again, and can’t go back. He tries, but in the end he gives up in favour of sitting up and finally reading his messages.

They’re about what he expects. His mom just wrote, ‘ _We’re disappointed._ ’ Saader went with ‘ _What the fucking hell_ ’, while Jonny wrote, ‘ _I thought you of all people would know better._ ’

It’s probably Chaunette who is the most scathing. ‘ _I don’t know what made you say that but you told me that you never wanted to be that kind of guy, and I’m sorry to see that you apparently are after all.’_ That last text stings a little, but she’s right. He had told her back in high school that he never wanted to be the kind of asshole who insulted someone like this, but here he is. He doesn’t bother replying to most of the other messages, everything he can say to them sounds hollow to his own ears. But Chauny has been his friend for so long… she deserves a reply.

His fingers hover over the screen of his phone for a moment, but then he starts typing. ‘ _I know there’s no excuse for what I’ve done, and making excuses is the last thing I want to do. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I hope you can forgive me, because I definitely don’t want to be that guy.’_

 

Andrew gets up right before Carter usually turns up to climb into bed with them, and he manages to catch him in the hallway before he comes in. Andrew picks him up and puts a finger to his lips so he stays quiet as they walk down the stairs.

“You look sad,” Carter says once they’ve reached the kitchen, and Andrew should have known that he would pick up on his mood.

“I did something very bad,” he says. “And I feel bad about it.”

“Did you fight?”

Andrew shakes his head. “No. But I called someone a very bad word, and I should have known better.”

“You have to say sorry,” Carter says earnestly.

“Yeah, I will have to.” Andrew has to smile a little. “But how about we make breakfast for your daddy first, since it’s his birthday?”

Carter nods excitedly at that and Andrew gets to work.

 

Andrew sends Carter ahead to their bedroom, while he fetches Kenzie from her crib. He has her on his hip, a cup of coffee for Brent in his hand as he pushes the door open to follow Carter.

Brent’s hair is a mess and he’s still bleary eyed, but he’s sitting up with Carter next to him and he actually smiles at Andrew when he looks up.

Andrew allows himself a small smile back as he hands Brent his coffee and sits down on the edge of the bed. He waits until Brent has taken a sip of his coffee and looks more awake, before he reaches out to take his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should not have said it. I… it’s not who I am. I’m going to talk to the front office about doing a public apology before we leave.”

There’s a soft smile playing around the very edges of Brent’s mouth, but the look on his face is serious as he says, “I know that you’re not. I never doubted that. But I always want you to be as good as you can be, and I’m disappointed when you’re not.” He squeezes Andrew’s hand, and now he’s definitely smiling softly.

Andrew nods. “I know. I hate letting you down.”

“You’re not letting me down. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I know you’re not.” His smile is warmer now, and he uses his hold on Andrew’s hand to pull him in. “Now, if I recall correctly it’s my birthday, so I think I deserve a birthday kiss.”

Andrew laughs and leans in to press a kiss to Brent’s lips.

“Breakfast!” Carter has been remarkably silent throughout their conversation, but apparently he has decided to remind them that he’s there.

“You made me breakfast?” Brent asks him with a smile, and Carter nods eagerly.

“Me and daddy.”

“Then I guess we better get up so it doesn’t go to waste.”

They laugh when Carter starts jumping up and down excitedly, and at least this Andrew hasn’t ruined with his idiocy.

 

He gets to do his public apology at the airport before they leave for St. Louis, and he doesn’t think he has ever meant an apology the way he means this one. He apologises and then he adds, “I always wanted to be a good role model for my kids, and I am so disappointed in myself for not living up to my own standards. I strive to do better in the future.”

The flight to St. Louis isn’t long, but Andrew falls asleep against Brent’s shoulder as soon as they sit down, and with the apology off his chest he can finally sleep properly.

 

Andrew gets suspended one game and he does his best to make up for it, but in the end it doesn’t matter. They lose game seven and that’s it. They’re out of the playoffs.

This time not even Andrew can muster enough positivity to try and cheer up the others. He slumps into Brent on the plane back to Chicago and by some unspoken agreement they say nothing, just sit like that until they have to get off.

They fall into bed and curl around each other as soon as they get home. Tomorrow they’ve got to face this properly, but right now they get to take comfort in each other and sleep.

Carter is curled up with them when Andrew wakes up, and he hadn’t even realised that he had come in but now he smiles as he sees him. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he really needs to use the bathroom. It takes some squirming for him to get out, which makes Brent grumble in his sleep. Andrew smiles down at him before he leaves for the bathroom.

Since he’s awake already he checks in on Kenzie, which leads to him going downstairs with her to get her fed, because she’s up and hungry. He gets her to eat some food and feeds the dogs as well, and then he decides to make waffles, because Brent and Carter shouldn’t take too long to wake up now, and they can all use some comfort food.

By the time he’s waiting for the last ones to be done Brent and Carter join him in the kitchen. Brent sets the table while Andrew goes to check in on Liz and see if she’s ready for some breakfast as well.

Liz is enthusiastic about the prospect of waffles and soon enough they’re all sitting down for breakfast. It’s Andrew’s favourite kind of chaos, with everyone talking and eating, the mood light and happy. He must have spaced out a bit, thinking about how hard it will be to leave this behind if he gets traded or just doesn’t get resigned, because Liz actually pokes him to get his attention.

“No spacing out on us,” she chides, smiling. Andrew laughs and joins the conversation again.

 

With the season over so early for them they all split up fairly quickly to go home and lick their wounds. Andrew’s exit interview is about what he expected, and so he’s looking forward to waiting to see where he’s going to play next season. He just hopes it’s not too far away from Chicago.

 

He and Brent go back to Kelowna with the kids to relax a bit before they’re off to visit Andrew’s parents in Ontario.

They watch the draft together from Andrew’s parents’ couch. Carter and Kenzie are playing outside in the garden with Andrew’s mom watching over them. Andrew’s fidgety. He’s got a feeling that it will happen today. Brent leaves him to it for all of five seconds before he shifts around and pulls Andrew in so his back rests against Brent’s chest. His arms are tightly wrapped around Andrew, and he presses a quick kiss to the back of his neck. Andrew relaxes into it, because he’s pretty much conditioned to at this point, and he kind of accepts the inevitable. It’s not like Brent is going to let go of him any time soon. They both know each other well enough to understand that.

 

Andrew’s not quite sure what to feel when they announce the trade. Montreal is not too far, and at least they’re not one of the teams the Hawks have much of a rivalry with, so he doesn’t really have bad memories about playing them. He thinks he can live with this trade, even if it still fucking sucks to go anywhere that’s not Chicago. What he’s not ready to unpack yet is how he feels about going to a team that only plays the Hawks twice a year. He just doesn’t know if he’s glad that he doesn’t have to face them more often, or if he’s sad because that’s only two definite chances to at least see Brent.

Brent mutes the TV while Andrew is still working through all of that in his head, and then he waits patiently. Andrew slides a bit lower so he can nestle his head under Brent’s chin and turns a little so he can breathe in his scent. It isn’t exactly comfortable for either of them, but Brent doesn’t complain, just readjusts his hold on Andrew and keeps holding him tight.

“Montreal,” Andrew says finally.

“It could be worse,” Brent says.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You’ll always be one of us. You know that right?”

“Yeah, I know. Won’t make it any easier to play against you though.”

“You’ll deal. It’s hockey. It was always going to be a possibility.”

Brent’s right, Andrew knows that, but right now he kind of hates hockey for it.

 

Once the trade is done it all goes fairly quickly. He has a new contract within a few days and then all that’s left is telling Carter and Kenzie. Andrew dreads the conversation a little. He feels like he’s letting them down, and to be honest he has no idea how to explain to them that he won’t be around much anymore. They don’t deserve this.

He and Brent sit them down the same day that Andrew’s new contract is announced. They probably should have done it earlier but Andrew hadn’t wanted to tell them before he actually had the contract. He knows Carter has been watching them a little suspiciously for the past three days, but he doesn’t think that he knows what exactly is going on.

Andrew gets him and Kenzie to sit on one knee each and says, “So I’ve got something important to tell you guys.” Carter scrunches up his face in distrust but he says nothing, just listens as Andrew goes on. “I won’t be playing for the Blackhawks anymore next season. They traded me to Montreal, so I have to go and live there after the summer.”

He’s not quite sure that Kenzie really understands what he’s telling her, but Carter is weirdly silent for a moment, before he says in a very small voice, “You leave?”

Andrew has to swallow. “Yes, I have to,” he says. “I really don’t want to. I want to stay with you, but I can’t. And I know it’s not the same but I’m going to try and see you as much as I can.”

Carter’s lip wobbles dangerously, but he scrambles off of Andrew’s knee before he actually starts crying and runs off out of the living room. Andrew sighs heavily, and he’s about to get up and follow him, when Brent puts a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll go talk to him, maybe he’ll listen to me,” he says. He gets up and gives Andrew a kiss on his forehead, before he follows Carter.

It’s just him and Kenzie now, and while she’s too small to understand the full consequences of what Andrew just told them, she has picked up enough on the mood in the room to understand that none of them are happy right now. At least she doesn’t look like she’s going to cry. Andrew sighs again as he pulls her fully into his lap and leans back into the couch cushions.

“I hope you’re not going to hate me for this one day,” he says to her, softly, but she only looks at him out of big eyes, and then leans into him, apparently content to cuddle on the couch.

By the time Brent comes back with Carter on his arm, Charlie and Bailey have wandered into the room along with Hersh, and have all cuddled up to him. Andrew didn’t have the heart to send them off the couch, especially not when Charlie had put his head onto Andrew’s thigh where Kenzie could easily reach him and had let her play with his ears.

“You got room for two more?” Brent asks softly when he comes in, and Andrew grabs Bailey to set her down on his other side where Charlie already is. Brent sits down next to him, their shoulders and thighs pressed together. Carter climbs so he’s mostly sitting in Andrew’s lap again, and lets Andrew put an arm around him to pull him close.

He has definitely cried, and he still sniffles a bit when he leans into Andrew’s side and says, “Don’t leave.”

Andrew’s heart breaks a little, and for a moment all he can do is squeeze Carter. Next to him Brent moves closer until they’re basically forming a cuddle pile.

“You know I love you, right?” Andrew says finally. Carter nods, and it’s just a small nod, but it makes Andrew release a breath. “And you know I always want to be with you guys. But sometimes, you don’t get to do what you want.”

“You come back?” Carter asks, voice still small but also hopeful.

Andrew has to swallow. He knows he can’t promise that, not the way Carter wants him to, so he settles on, “We’ll see each other as much as we can. And I’ll call you guys every day the way we already do it when we play away games.”

“Promise?” Carter perks up a bit now.

“Promise.” Andrew nods, because this he can promise them.

 

There’s a lot of family cuddle piles that summer. He gets some texts from new teammates, and he’s not quite sure how Brendan Gallagher got a hold of his phone number, but he also thinks he doesn’t really want to know. He has a moment to realise how weird it will be to play on a team with Shae Weber of all people after the Habs trade Subban for him, but most of that is at least somewhat related to hockey.

He and Brent start looking for a house, and they end up making a trip to Montreal right before Brent has to go to Chicago for the convention, to look at the ones that seem most promising. None of them feel right. And hell, Andrew knew this would be hard, but this is frustrating.

Brent leaves for the convention, but Andrew has a few more tours scheduled. He’s starting to dread them a little, because none of these places feel like they could be home, even if his family is missing. Some of them would have been great if they were all living together in them, but Andrew could already feel himself get lonely just thinking about all the time he’s going to spend alone in them.

By some twist of fate the first house the real estate agent shows him when Brent is gone is perfect. Andrew knows it as soon as he sets foot in it, and hell, he’s going to come back to see it again with Brent, but he’d be surprised if Brent saw things differently. He schedules another tour for after the convention, and agrees to see the other houses, even though he knows they won’t be as perfect as this one.

 

He flies to Chicago the next day, even though he had planned to stay in Montreal while Brent was gone. But hell, he’s not gonna miss a chance to spend time with his husband while he can. Besides, he’s willing to bet that Brent’s tired out from the convention and will be glad for some company.

He knows Brent’s not planning anything with the guys for the evening, so he gets into his sweat pants and lounges on the couch all afternoon. The TV is on in the background as he tries to come up with a list of stuff he has to take along to Montreal, and another one with things he can probably leave here. The house is too silent with no one there but him and it makes him a bit sad. He already hates that this is going to be his new reality.

By the time Brent gets home Andrew has given up on thinking about moving his stuff and the smell of Brent’s favourite Chinese takeaway is wafting through the house. Brent looks surprised when he finds Andrew waiting for him. He looks tired, like he can use a relaxing evening on the couch, without having to talk or socialise.

Andrew steps close to him to hug him, and says, “I ordered food. You just need to go change into something more comfortable and we can eat.”

“I…yeah. I’ll be right back,” Brent says, and quickly disappears up the stairs to get changed.

When he gets back down in a pair of sweatpants and an old worn out Hawks shirt, Andrew shoves one of the takeaway boxes into his hands and pulls him down on the couch with him. Brent slumps into him as they eat, probably more exhausted than Andrew expected. They don’t talk over dinner, and it’s not like they have to. Andrew can read every ounce of exhaustion from the slump in Brent’s shoulders, and the fact that he missed Andrew from the way he relaxes into his touch. And he knows that Brent can read him just as easily.

Brent puts his empty container onto the table as soon as he’s done with it and nuzzles into Andrew’s side. Andrew puts down his own empty container and puts an arm around Brent’s shoulder.

“Didn’t think you’d be here,” Brent murmurs.

Andrew leans his head against Brent’s. “I knew you’d be happy about some comfort, babe. You already sounded tired when we talked on the phone yesterday.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“You know I’m glad to.”

“Mhmm.” Brent’s silent for a moment, but then he says, “So how did the house hunting go without me?”

“I think I found something. We have an appointment to look at it together again after the weekend, but I’m fairly sure you’ll agree once you see it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good then.”

They lapse back into silence, and Andrew is starting to think that Brent has fallen asleep, when he says, “I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

He swallows heavily around the lump that has suddenly formed in his throat before he says, “Me too, babe.”

 

They go back to Montreal once the convention is done for their tour of what Andrew has already started to think about as their house. He was right, Brent loves it, and they decide to buy it.

 

The rest of the summer is filled with family cuddle piles, organising the move to Montreal and training.

They go to Chicago again to sort through Andrew’s things and to talk to Liz about how to handle things with him gone.

They talk through things with Liz over coffee in their kitchen one afternoon.

“The kids are staying in Chicago for the most part,” Andrew explains. “We’ll still have to see about our detailed schedules before we can plan any visits, but we’ll see about that when we get there.”

Liz nods. “So I guess I’ll have to be around more often.”

“Yeah, about that,” Andrew says. “We were thinking that maybe you could move in after all? We know you preferred to stay in your own apartment, but we would both sleep a little easier with you being here.”

Liz nods. “I’d be glad to!” she says. “Especially since the lease for the apartment is up anyways and my friend is planning to move in with her boyfriend. So you’re actually sparing me the hassle to try and find a new place.”

Brent smiles. “We’ll renovate the basement so you have your own space as well. We probably should have done that in the first place.”

“It worked the way we handled it until now. Do you want me to move in as soon as possible or is it enough if I do it when my lease is up at the end of November?”

Andrew exchanges a look with Brent, but he shrugs, this is a decision Brent has to make on his own.

“November is okay,” Brent says. “That gives us time to go over the details and to get more of a grip on schedules and such.”

Liz nods again. “We’ll work it out. It’s not like Montreal is at the end of the world or something,” she says, smiling. She takes a sip of her coffee before she adds, “So how are the kids holding up so far?”

Andrew pulls a face at that. “I don’t think Kenzie quite gets it yet, just that we’re all a bit down. But Carter doesn’t like it at all.”

“I thought so,” Liz says. “He loves both of you to pieces. There’s no way he takes one of you having to leave to play somewhere else well.” She smiles at Andrew. “He’ll get around though. Once he realises that you’ll still see him as often as you can, and that you still love him, he’ll get better about it, trust me.”

Andrew smiles back. “I hope so.”

Brent clears his throat. “Speaking of the kids,” he says. “We’re uh hoping that we’ll have another one on the way soon.”

Liz starts grinning. “You’re having another one? That’s great news!”

“Yeah, we talked about it and we decided to go ahead with it, even if we’re not playing for the same team anymore.”

“You’ll make it work. You’ve made it this far, you’ll manage from here on, too.”

Brent and Andrew share a smile, and then Andrew says, “Yeah, we really hope so.”

 

After that trip they stay in Kelowna to spend the last remaining weeks of their summer with the kids. The fact that they’re going to go separate ways soon is weighing on all of them, and everyone is a little clingy.

Andrew spends countless hours playing with Carter and Kenzie, or just lying in the hammock by the lake, with both kids cuddled up to him. And at night, when the kids are in bed, he has Brent, who has developed a constant need to cuddle. Some people might find it smothering, but Andrew gets it, and he’s just as bad as Brent. They don’t even let go of each other in their sleep.

 

In the end, Brent and the kids leave before Andrew does. They had discussed how to do this for the longest time, and had ultimately decided to do it this way around, so the kids got to have a proper goodbye and it didn’t feel quite as much like Andrew was leaving them. There’s tears from both, Kenzie and Carter when he says goodbye at the airport, and Andrew hugs them long and hard, and promises that they’re going to see each other as soon as possible.

Brent gives him a hug and a lingering goodbye kiss, and Andrew can see his own sadness reflected in Brent’s eyes, but they’re both doing their best not to tear up in front of the kids so neither of them addresses it.

“October,” Brent murmurs to Andrew before they part, and it’s the best promise they can make. They’ll only have to make it until October.

 

Andrew doesn’t cry until he gets home. But then he curls up on the couch with the dogs and he just lets himself have it. Damn, he’s already feeling lonely, and the house feels eerily quiet with no one here but himself, Charlie and Bailey. It doesn’t help that their things are already put away for the winter. Andrew has no idea how he’s going to make it without his family, if he can’t even deal with this.

He ends up falling asleep and wakes up just in time to have dinner, and accept their first of many daily family Skype calls. Brent looks tired when the call connects, and Andrew doesn’t envy him the travel day with two sad, cranky kids. But he doesn’t comment on it, not in front of Carter and Kenzie. He smiles at them instead.

“Hey guys,” he says.

Carter looks like he’s still trying to decide whether he’s angry at Andrew for not coming along, or if he’s just happy to talk to him, but in the end the happiness wins and he grins at Andrew and says, “Daddy!”

Kenzie is a bit more subdued, but that’s probably because she’s tired. She smiles sleepily and says, “Dada.”

They’re both cuddled up to Brent on the big couch in the living room from the looks of it, everyone’s already in their pyjamas, and god, Andrew aches to be with them.

They talk about their flight, and how the dogs are doing, and when Kenzie starts to look like she might drop off soon, Brent takes them up to Carter’s bedroom so Andrew can read them a good night story.

By the end of it, Brent has to extract Kenzie carefully, so he can carry her to her own room.

He moves on to their own bedroom after and as soon as he’s in bed, his back against the headboard, they smile at each other tiredly.

“How are you holding up?” Brent asks.

“I’m dealing,” Andrew says. “How did you manage?”

“It was stressful. But we got through it with minimal tears and running away.”

“So about as well as we expected.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

They talk until Andrew really has to go to sleep. Brent looks about ready to crash as well, and really, Andrew’s only regret is that he can’t see it in person.

 

The next day he leaves for Montreal.

 

Montreal is… different. There’s that whole language issue, and yeah, Andrew can deal with English, but he feels like maybe he should at least try to learn some French if he’s living here. And well, it’s obviously a city that doesn’t have his family in it.

Mostly though Andrew’s just trying to find his footing here. The house is all ready, he just has to unpack his boxes and buy a whole bunch of necessities, so there’s that. The dogs love the backyard, but their mood matches Andrew’s. They all miss the rest of their family, and if Andrew’s honest it doesn’t help.

 

He’s glad when the Gallys invite him over for dinner one evening. It’s a good excuse to get out of the house, and he’s kind of looking forward to actually meeting some of the guys on the team.

As it turns out they invited Webs as well, and so Andrew finds himself at a table with the guy who used to captain the divisional rival of his old team. Hockey can be so weird.

“How’s the family?” Webs asks.

Andrew smiles. “Brent’s good,” he says. “The kids are struggling a little, but we’re doing our best.”

“It can’t be easy.”

“It isn’t. At least with the dogs here the house isn’t quiet.”

“Wait,” Chucky says all of a sudden. “You have kids?”

“God, I literally told you this today,” Gally says. “How do you not remember?”

“I didn’t listen.”

Gally sighs dramatically at that. He’s acting exasperated, but the look on his face is fond.

“Shawzy is married to Brent Seabrook and they have two kids and two dogs, Chucky. It’s not exactly news, they’ve been together for three years.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Chucky shrugs and Gally shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry for him,” he says to Andrew, who laughs.

“It’s fine. And we just found out that we’re having kid number three on the way.”

There’s congratulations at that piece of news, and Andrew smiles as he thanks them.

He and Brent had only gotten the news earlier that day, and he’s still kind of amazed that it’s really happening. Neither of them knows how things will work out, but they’re sure that they can do it. They’ve just got to roll with the punches.

 

Andrew finally meets the rest of the team a day or so before the beginning of camp, at a team barbecue at Patches’ house. And he knew the guys would be great, but it’s still nice of them to welcome him.

There’s a slightly awkward moment when someone’s girlfriend asks Andrew about his wife and he stares at her in confusion until he realises that she’s talking about the ring on his finger.

“Oh my husband? He’s back in Chicago with our kids.”

“So he didn’t want to move to Montreal?”

She recovered fast, but Andrew has heard that tone of voice far too often in his life, and he does not want to deal with it right now.

“Work’s got him tied up there,” he just says, and gets out of the conversation as fast as politely possible. He doesn’t want to deal with the judgemental questions about the kids on top of that.

For the most part the team’s good to him though. It’s a new room to learn about, new people to get to know, but Andrew was always one to find his footing pretty quickly, and it doesn’t take him long to find his place on this team as well.

 

Only when he has gotten to know the guys a little and at least has a feeling for where he stands does he text Chauny to catch up. She’s living and working in Montreal these days, and as much as Andrew likes his new team so far, he’s glad to have a familiar face around. Besides, it’s always good to have friends outside the team.

Chaunette is happy to hang out with him, and she manages to get him out of the house to show him some of her favourite places. When he tells Brent that they’ve been hanging out, he seems relieved to hear it.

“I’m glad you have people there to hang out with,” he says. “It’s always easier if there’s someone around you know.”

“Even if Chauny wasn’t here, you know I’d manage.”

Brent smiles softly at that. “I know. But I worry anyways.”

“I know.” Andrew smiles back. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 

The season starts and even if it’s ridiculous to think otherwise, hockey is still hockey. Andrew has his place on the team, and he definitely has his place on the ice.

The only thing that actually sucks is the way his and Brent’s schedules align. Which is pretty much not at all. And with the season schedule being condensed because of the World Cup of Hockey on top of that, things look kind of abysmal for them seeing each other.

Their first chance is a three day break the Habs have between games at the end of October. Andrew has home games before and after, and while Brent is playing two games they’re both at home as well. And so Andrew’s on the earliest flight possible the morning after the game against the Leafs to go and see his family in Chicago.

Brent’s at practice by the time Andrew lands, so Liz and the kids pick him up. As soon as Andrew closes his arms around Carter and Kenzie, he feels settled. It’s good to realise that Carter is still happy to see him. Even though he hasn’t seemed to feel any different about Andrew during their daily video calls, Andrew has worried a little about it. It’s one thing to see each other on a screen, but it’s another to actually get to see each other in person.

He doesn’t even realise how much Kenzie has grown until he sees her in Liz’ arms. It makes him a little sad that he’s missing out on this, but her smile when she sees him more than makes up for it.

It’s a pity he couldn’t bring the dogs, but he didn’t want to subject them to too much travel. Besides, the Gallys had jumped at the chance to dogsit, while he is gone.

Carter is so excited he can’t seem to stop talking. Andrew listens and nods with a smile, even though Carter has told him most of this before. By the time they’ve gotten home, and Andrew has moved what little clothes he has brought along into the closet, Carter is done telling about what they did while Andrew was gone, and moves on to questions.

“How are Charlie and Bailey?” is the first thing he wants to know. They’ve sat down on the couch, bot kids somehow nestled in Andrew’s lap, listening intently.

“They were fine when I left this morning,” Andrew says. “Gally and Chucky will look after them while I’m here.”

“Can we call them to say hi?”

Andrew chuckles. “I’ll have to check in with them about that. I’m sure they can at least send a photo.” He’s actually fairly sure that Gally at least will be more than happy to agree. He’s been dying to meet the kids for some reason, Andrew can probably indulge him.

 

By the time Brent comes home Andrew is telling stories about his new teammates and life in Quebec. For a moment Brent just stands in the door to the living room, his bag still in his hand, a soft smile playing around his lips. Andrew smiles back at him, and Brent puts down his bag, and comes over, takes Andrew’s face in both hands and presses a hard kiss to his lips.

Andrew smiles stupidly at him when they part, but it doesn’t even matter because Brent’s doing the same.

“It’s good to see you,” Brent says.

“Yeah… I know.”

Brent smiles and after another quick kiss, he asks, “So now that I’m home, how about lunch?”

They have lunch, and hang out on the couch together, and then they all pile into Brent’s and Andrew’s bed together for Brent’s pre-game nap. And maybe it’s not the most thrilling afternoon Andrew’s ever had, but he’s surrounded by his family, his husband and kids next to him, instead of hundreds of miles away, and there’s nothing that can top this.

He sets up a video call with the Gallys after dinner to occupy the kids while they wait for the game to start. As expected, Gally had immediately agreed when Andrew had asked him if they could call so the kids could see the dogs.

The call connects and Gally’s beaming face fills the screen.

“Hello!” he says with a little wave.

“Hey.” Andrew smiles at him before he tells the kids, “This is Gally, he’s one of my teammates in Montreal.”

“Hello Gally,” Carter says seriously.

Kenzie’s “Hello” is a bit shier, but she smiles, so there’s that.

“You must be Kenzie and Carter,” Gally says. “It’s nice to meet you!”

“How are Charlie and Bailey?” Carter asks, single minded as always.

“They miss their real family, but Chucky and I are trying our best to make it up to them. You wanna see them?” Both Carter and Kenzie nod eagerly, and Gally chuckles. “Then let’s go check on them.” He picks up the tablet and tells them about how they have set them up in their living room, and how Andrew had made sure they have their favourite toys and kibble.

“Do you cuddle?” Carter asks, a serious look on his face.

“Well, I will have to check in with Charlie and Bailey on that, but if they want to we will definitely cuddle with them,” Gally promises.

The picture gets a little shaky as Gally sits down on the floor, but when it gets clear again Andrew can see the couch in the background, with a disinterested Chucky on it.

“That’s Chucky by the way,” Gally says, pointing at him over his shoulder.” Say hi to Shawzy’s kids, Chucky.”

Chucky grunts and waves from the couch, but he doesn’t look up from whatever he’s doing, and Gally rolls his eyes.

“Don’t mind him,” he says, “He’s just a big old grump. We’re here to see some dogs, aren’t we?” He turns the tablet around so the dogs can see them on the screen, and says, “Hey, Charlie, Bailey, look who I brought you!”

Both dogs look up, but it takes Andrew calling their names for them to look at the tablet and see them. They’re out of their crates within seconds, and for a moment it’s hard to see anything more than close ups of dog snouts nosing at the tablet. Andrew’s glad they’re both trained so well, because somehow both of them listen when he tells them to sit. Or well, it works for the most part, because Charlie decides to lie down instead and put his head on his paws while he looks at them.

Gally’s hand appears from off screen to pet both of them, as he coos, “Aren’t you two good dogs?”

They chat for a bit, and then it’s almost time for the game. Gally promises again to cuddle with the dogs if they want it, and that he’s going to make sure that they’re as happy as they can be. It’s enough to satisfy Carter for now. Andrew gets a text from Gally shortly after that says, ‘ _I can’t wait to meet your kids!’_ which probably means that Gally’s going to pester him even more about them now.

The Hawks shut out the Kings, which is good, and Andrew is glad that the kids are already sleepy, because they go to bed with minimal fuss, even though it’s Halloween tomorrow and especially Carter is wont to be overly excited about it already.

 

Andrew’s still awake when Brent walks into the bedroom. He looks up from the show he’s watching on his tablet and finds his own smile mirrored on Brent’s face.

“Good game,” he says.

“Thanks.” The smile stays on Brent’s face even when he bends down for a quick kiss, and says, “I’ll be right with you.”

“No need to hurry,” Andrew says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Brent hurries anyways, and Andrew can’t help his fond smile when Brent’s back in record time and climbs into bed with him. He gets it, he wouldn’t want to waste time either.

They settle in, and Brent pulls Andrew close to kiss him. They haven’t really had the chance yet with the kids around, but now they finally get to kiss as thoroughly as they actually want. It starts out innocently enough, but it’s not long before they’re making out, and from there it’s only a question of time until Brent slides his hand into Andrew’s pants and Andrew’s very on board with _that_ program.

 

Three days is definitely not enough time, but Andrew makes the most of it. They take the kids trick-or-treating for Halloween, and he makes sure to spend as much time as actually possible hanging out with them. Andrew leaves on the afternoon before the Hawks play the Flames, and against his routine, Brent delays his pre-game nap enough to see him off at the airport with the kids.

“When do you come back?” Carter asks when Andrew hugs him goodbye.

“Soon,” Andrew promises. “We’re playing here in two weeks. You just have to have twelve sleeps and I’ll be back.”

“Okay.”

Brent smiles when Andrew kisses him goodbye. “Don’t get yourself injured,” he says, and Andrew nods.

“I’ll try my best.”

He walks through airport security and then with a last wave to his family he’s on his way back to Montreal.

 

Carter asks Andrew every day about how many sleeps there are left until he’s coming back. It becomes their ritual for the end of every video call, and even Kenzie gets in on it some days, trying her very best to pronounce the number of the day. And Liz tells Andrew that Carter makes her and Brent cross off every day that passes on the calendar in the kitchen.

“He’s really excited already,” she tells him a few days before they’re flying to Chicago, and Andrew smiles.

“I can tell. I can’t wait to see them again either.”

 

The game in Chicago is the second in a back-to-back for the Habs, and so Andrew reaches Chicago late the evening before. He’s managed to beg off the team hotel and he takes a cab home and pretty much falls straight into bed next to his husband, who is already fast asleep. Brent rolls over in his sleep to wrap Andrew in his arms, but he doesn’t wake and Andrew is out as soon as he buries his nose in Brent’s shirt.

 

It feels too early when Andrew wakes up because Carter practically launches himself at him. He blinks sleepily and it takes him a moment to parse together where he is.

Carter’s happy grin never falters though and when Andrew gives him a slow, groggy smile, he says, “You’re really here!”

“Just like I said I would, right?”

Carter nods. “Yes. But you didn’t say hi.”

It takes Andrew’s brain a moment to understand what Carter’s trying to say, but when he does, he smiles fondly.

“I came very late last night,” he explains. “You were already asleep and I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Carter cocks his head to the side, but he nods in the end, and Andrew releases a breath.

And then Brent grumbles “Why’s it so loud?” next to them.

Andrew smiles, while Carter immediately turns towards Brent and jumps up and down, saying excitedly, “Daddy’s here! Daddy’s here!”

“Huh?” Brent opens his eyes sleepily. “Oh.” He reaches out to pull Carter in. “It’s too early, Shortcake. Let us sleep.”

“But Daddy.”

“Your daddy’s not gonna run away.” Brent has already closed his eyes again. Carter tries to wriggle free, but Brent holds him tight, and Andrew moves in until they’re forming a Carter sandwich.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

 

They do get up eventually, because Brent has to go to morning skate, and by then they’re all fully awake. They fall back into their old routines without even thinking about it. Brent gets first shower today, while Andrew gets the kids and starts on breakfast. They have a relaxed breakfast, before Brent distracts the kids so Andrew can shower, and then Andrew gets his alone time with the kids. They draw together, and both Carter and Kenzie practically shove their drawings in Andrew’s hands for him to take to Montreal.

“I’ll put them where I see them every day,” he promises.

He has to tread carefully when they both want to play different things with him, but he manages to find a compromise that ends with minimal sulking from either kid, and when Brent returns from morning skate he finds them in the middle of an epic adventure featuring dinosaurs on cars, a lot of bricks, and Kenzie as a widely smiling human Godzilla. Brent raises an eyebrow at the mess they’ve made, but he smiles fondly.

He sits down with Carter and asks, “So what are we playing?”

He gets a short rundown from Carter, while Andrew and Kenzie plan their next attack, and then it’s on again. They’re in the last showdown between the dinosaurs and Godzilla, anyways and it’s wrapped up quickly with a draw when Godzilla manages to block the dinosaurs in but not to kill them. After some short negotiations between Andrew and Carter they find a peace agreement, and settle on lunch to celebrate it.

 

They get lunch ready in time for the Gallys to arrive. Andrew has been a bit sceptical about their lunch plans, but Brent had smiled at him and said, “We should definitely invite them.” And well, if Brent, with all his ridiculously rigid game day routines, is fine with inviting people over for lunch before a game, Andrew doesn’t really have a leg to stand on. Besides, Gally has a serious case of the puppy dog eyes, and Andrew could practically see them in front of him when he thought about mentioning the lunch invitation to him.

The two of them are right on time, and not even Chucky can stay grumpy when Andrew opens the door with Kenzie on his arm. No one can withstand her charms for long.

But Carter scrunches up his face when they walk in. “Who’s with Charlie and Bailey?” he asks Andrew, confused.

Andrew laughs. “They’ve got to play hockey this evening. Charlie and Bailey have someone else to take care of them for when I’m gone with the team.”

“Do they cuddle? And play?” Carter wants to know.

“I’m sure they do, Shortcake. But I’ll ask when I get back to make sure.”

Carter nods and Andrew ruffles his hair with a fond smile. His little guy knows what’s important to him.

Lunch is nice. Andrew has no idea why he would ever think otherwise, but he’s glad anyways. It’s good to see that at least some of his new teammates get along with his family.

Gally seems absolutely in love with the kids. Chucky is too, but he’s a little better at hiding it, even if that still doesn’t make him entirely subtle.

Gally insists on helping Andrew clear the table after lunch, while Brent and Chucky are engrossed in a discussion about nachos, the beginning of which completely eludes Andrew.

 

“You’re different when you’re here,” Gally says when they’re in the kitchen. Andrew raises an eyebrow at him, and he laughs. “Different in a good way, I mean.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.It’s… you’re not unhappy with us, or at least you don’t seem to be, but it’s clear that you’re at home here.”

Andrew smiles. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. And I’m definitely not unhappy in Montreal. You’ve all been good to me.”

“But we’re not your family.” Gally shrugs. “That’s to expected. And it’s nothing anyone on the team would hold against you, I think. You’ve seen how Carey is without PK, and he’s been with us for a lot longer than you have.”

“Yeah…” But before either of them can say anything more Carter comes into the kitchen.

“Daddy asks where you are,” he reports dutifully.

Andrew smiles at him. “I’ll be right back. We just need to put these dishes into the dishwasher.”

Carter nods and turns around to run back to Brent.

“You’re not supposed to run,” Andrew calls after him, but Carter pretends not to hear him, and Andrew shakes his head with a smile.

 

The Gallys don’t stay long after that. They’ve got their own pre-game naps to get to, and their own routines.

Andrew and Brent help Carter tidy up the remains of their battle earlier, and then they all head up together for their own pre-game nap. Andrew ends up with two arm-fulls of kids, Brent kind of curled around him, and it’s probably the best pre-game nap he’s had all season.

 

It’s weird to enter the UC with Brent but not going to the same locker room. It was weird to think about not going to the home locker room already, but actually being here and not going in is even worse. But Andrew ignores it, just kisses Brent goodbye and gets his head in the game. Rolling with the punches is his thing after all.

He gets ready as if it’s any other game. He has to or he won’t be able to do this. Webs nods at him on the way out, and yeah, it’s good to know that someone gets it.

He somehow ends up between the Gallys on the way out for warm-ups, which wouldn’t be noteworthy in itself, except they stick to Andrew’s sides on the ice. He raises an eyebrow at them, because hell, they don’t need to coddle him. But Gally grins and says, “You should turn around.” When Andrew only gives him a confused look, Chucky rolls his eyes and grabs his shoulder to turn him around.

They’re right at the glass, and on the other side stands Liz with Carter and Kenzie. All three of them are grinning widely, and it takes Andrew a second, but then he realises that they’re all wearing his jersey. He can’t help it, he starts laughing happily. He touches his glove to the glass to say hi, and by the time he turns around to go back to his usual warm up routine, Gally and Chucky are gone, and Andrew feels a lot lighter. He meets Brent’s eyes across the ice, and Brent’s soft smile tells him that he knew about this.

Andrew gives everything he can, but they lose the game. He wants to feel as bad about it as he should, but he also can’t feel down about seeing his family, especially because he gets to spend another night and a morning with them. If any of the guys don’t like it they at least don’t show it.

And while everyone else gets on a flights back to Montreal, Andrew goes home to his family and falls asleep in Brent’s arms.

 

Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense to stay in Chicago for another night. They both have to leave by the afternoon of the next day, Andrew because he’s got a home game to play the day after, Brent because the Hawks have an away game in Winnipeg. But Andrew can admit to himself that he’s greedy for time with his family, and even if it’s just a few hours he’ll take every minute he can get.

 

He has his flight timed so he leaves together with Brent, which means he says his goodbyes to Carter and Kenzie at home. The last thing Carter asks him before he leaves is, “How many sleeps, daddy?”

Andrew squats down in front of him and smiles. “Eleven this time,” he says. “So it’s just as long as last time.”

Carter nods, and they hug, but then Andrew and Brent really have to be on their way.

 

As he promised Carter, Andrew talks to his dog sitter about cuddling and playing, and reports back. She’s nice enough to humour his son’s questions, and says she’ll make sure to send him pictures the next time so he can show Carter that she means it. It’s more than Andrew would have expected her to do, but he accepts. It will make Carter happy if anything, which Andrew is always glad to see.

 

The ten days until he gets to see his family again pass in the usual grind of home and away games, wins and losses. Andrew hangs out with his teammates He has Lehky over for dinner and movies a couple of times, and generally does his best not to be too much of a loner. If he bails on them any chance he can to see his family, he can at least make an effort when he’s there.

In late November they get an away game in Detroit, right before a two day break and an away game in Anaheim right after that. It’s only a one hour flight from Detroit to Chicago, and Brent has the same two days off, so after their OT win against the Red Wings, he gets on a plane to Chicago and goes home.

When he falls into bed this time, he’s still alone. The Hawks had an away game in LA, and Brent hasn’t landed yet, but Andrew’s glad enough to be home that he falls asleep immediately and doesn’t wake until the next day.

He’s curled around Brent, who’s fast asleep and doesn’t sound like he’s going to wake up any time soon, and for a moment he just stays there, smiling into Brent’s neck.

He gets up before Carter can come in and takes a quick shower, before tip-toeing out of the room to check on the kids. Kenzie is already awake and looks happy to get out of her bed, and Carter wakes when Andrew cracks the door open to check on him.

He smiles happily when he realises that it’s Andrew at the door, and immediately jumps out of bed to say hello. Andrew has to shush him a little, but he lifts him up when he throws his arms around him, and smiles.

Once again they only get a day and a morning together, but it’s enough to tide Andrew over until Christmas he thinks. It has to be. They’re not getting another break when he gets to see all of them together until then.

 

Brent sits out a couple of games with a minor head injury in early December, and he insists that it’s nothing, but Andrew still worries from afar. He knows he can trust Brent with this, but a head injury is a head injury and he just can’t help worrying about it.

It’s probably a special kind of irony though when Andrew gets hit in the head by Torey Krug during an OT loss against the Bruins right after. He doesn’t need the tests to know that he’s concussed. It’s not his first concussion. The only question is how bad it actually is.

They send him to the hospital so they can keep an eye on him over night. Andrew’s head _hurts_ and he’s glad for the silence in his room, but apparently he’s not quite off the hook yet, because Artturi comes over straight from the game. Andrew grumbles a bit when he walks in, but Lehky ignores it, and whispers to him, “I need the pass code for your phone.”

“What for?” Andrew asks confused.

“So I can call your husband to tell him what’s up. I doubt any of the doctors or trainers thought to do that.”

“Oh.” Andrew’s brain is fuzzy, but he manages to remember the pass code. “1315,” he says.

“Really? Your cup years?” Artturi snorts.

Andrew would roll his eyes, if he wasn’t absolutely positive that it would be a bad idea. “The years our kids were born, asshole,” he says instead.

“Okay that makes more sense. Now just wait a minute and I’ll call your husband for you.” He disappears out of the door again and Andrew is left behind in blessed darkness and silence. He knows the chances are slim, but he really hopes he doesn’t have to ruin their Christmas plans. Artturi leans back into the room at some point to ask if Andrew wants to talk to Brent himself, but he’s not sure he can make himself right now, so he makes a sound that he hopes Artturi understands as a “no”. He gets lucky, and shortly after Lehky comes back in, Andrew’s phone in hand, and puts it down on the little table next to Andrew’s hospital bed.

“He says he hopes it won’t be too bad, and I’m supposed to keep him updated when I can. And he’ll make a few  phone calls to get someone to check on the dogs, and to get your mum here to take care of you,” he says softly. “He’ll try to come up next week when he has that game in Ottawa.”

“Thanks man,” Andrew manages to say.

“No problem. If you need anything don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Will do.”

“You’re in good hands here, and I better leave before the nurses kill me for being here after visitor hours.” There’s a wry smile on Artturi’s face now, and he gets up to go. “Get well soon, Shawzy.”

 

Having a concussion is the worst thing Andrew has ever experienced. It’s not like he didn’t know that already, but actually having one drives it home again, and ugh. His mom comes up from Belleville to take care of him, and Andrew is thankful for that, but most of the time he’s just miserable and bad company, and she definitely doesn’t deserve that. Chaunette helps a lot with the dogs by taking them out for walks and playing with them.

But mostly Andrew kind of wallows in misery. He really wishes this hadn’t happened. As things stand, he’s probably going to miss Christmas with his family, and he really doesn’t want to, but this concussion is bad enough that the doctors aren’t sure when he will be okay again. Even if he thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of kids around in his state, he’s not subjecting the kids to this. It’s bad enough that his mom has to deal with it.

Brent stays true to his word and comes up after the game in Ottawa. He makes the two hour drive the same evening, but Andrew doesn’t get to see him until the next morning, when he walks in to convince him to try some breakfast. Andrew knows Brent can’t stay longer than until tomorrow, but he really really wishes things didn’t have to be this way. He had thought he could deal with his injuries even without having Brent around, but the past week has shown him that he really can’t. It’s just too much.

He has some food and miraculously manages to keep it down, and then Brent sits with him in the dark, Andrew’s head in his lap, one hand playing with Andrew’s hair, and it’s probably the best Andrew has felt since he got this concussion.

They talk in soft, hushed tones about Christmas and what to tell the kids, and anything else that comes to mind. Andrew tells Brent about how miserable he feels, and how he doesn’t think he’s as nice to his mom as he should be. Brent soothes him, and kisses him softly, and tells him that she understands, that they all understand, and Andrew feels a little better about himself.

Brent has to leave the next day, because unlike Andrew he still has hockey to play, and Andrew is miserable about it for a few days.

 

What’s even worse than feeling miserable about himself, is how bored he is. He can’t do anything. Hell, he can’t even talk to his kids, because the screen of his phone makes his head hurt. It’s pretty much the worst Christmas he has ever had.

 


	5. Where You Are Is Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew doesn’t get cleared to play until mid-January, and god, he missed hockey. But what’s even better is that he gets to talk to his family again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from I Will Always Return (Finale) by Bryan Adams

Andrew doesn’t get cleared to play until mid-January, and god, he missed hockey. If he thought any of his previous injuries were bad, none of them prepared him for how bad being out for a month is, or how good it feels to step back onto a rink and play again. The guys grin and heckle him a bit, but Andrew knows they all get it. There’s nothing like hockey.

But what’s even better is that he gets to talk to his family again. Carter and Kenzie are overjoyed and Brent can’t stop smiling all through their first call.  Neither can Andrew.

“How long?” Carter asks.

Andrew smiles softly. “Fourteen sleeps. Can you do that for me? Fourteen sleeps more?” Carter nods. “Good. And I’ll call every day until then.”

“You promise?” Andrew knew it had been hard for Carter, but he hadn’t realised quite how hard it must have been.

“I promise.”

He can’t wait for the All Star break.

 

He does manage to keep his promise, and with every day that passes and brings them closer to seeing each other again, Carter seems to get less anxious. Andrew doesn’t tell anyone how glad he is that Carter doesn’t seem to hold anything against him.

 

And then the All Star break finally comes and brings Brent and both kids to Montreal. Andrew picks them up at the airport, and Carter runs into his arms as soon as he catches sight of him. Andrew wraps him in a tight hug.

“Hey Shortcake,” he says.

Carter buries his head against Andrew’s shoulder and holds on as tight as he can. “Missed you, daddy,” he says, and doesn’t let go.

“I missed you, too, Shortcake.”

He adjusts his grip on him so he holds him securely and can lift him up when he gets back up.

By then Brent has reached them, too. He smiles softly, and leans in for a kiss.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, and god, if it wasn’t for the kids Andrew would probably hug him so tight they both could barely breathe.

Instead Andrew gets an armful of Kenzie almost immediately, because she really wants to be on his arm as well. She latches on to his other shoulder, and he makes sure that he’s holding her safely.

Brent smiles at them and grabs their things so Andrew can lead the way out to the car.

It’s a bit of a struggle to get either kid to let go of Andrew so they can strap them into their car seats, but they make it in the end, and Andrew can get behind the wheel to drive them home.

 

The kids are almost shy when they enter the house for the first time. Sure, they both look around curiously, but they stick close to Andrew. Or at least they do until the dogs come out to welcome everyone. Charlie and Bailey both come running with wagging tails and what Andrew can only describe as their happy faces. There’s some excited jumping and head-butting, and Kenzie ends up sitting on the floor, happily grabbing at one of Charlie’s ears, while Carter hugs Bailey, but it’s good to see everyone like this.

Andrew and Brent get their shoes off and then they wrestle the kids out of their shoes.

“So how about I give you a tour first?” Andrew suggests, and both kids nod excitedly. He starts with the first floor, the living room and the kitchen and the sitting room, and the view out into the garden. Both of them seem excited about the latter, even if it’s barely visible under a thick layer of snow. There’s the basement that has the perfect room for movie watching. Andrew had double-checked last week if he really had all of the kids’ favourites, and his DVD shelf definitely passes muster.

And then there’s the kids’ rooms on the second floor. There are three bedrooms on the first floor, and two are already set up for Kenzie and Carter. The third Andrew uses as a guest room for now, because there’s still time before they have to convert it into a room for kid number three.

Carter and Kenzie both love their rooms. Carter happily bounces on his bed, and he seems over the moon with the set up. Kenzie is just as excited.

Carter’s most important question is “And you and daddy?” though.

Andrew smiles and points at the stairs that lead up to the third floor. “We’re just up the stairs. You really can’t miss it.”

Carter nods, satisfied, and then he goes back to exploring his room.

They get everyone settled in and after lunch they spend their afternoon in the movie room, watching a bunch of kids’ movies in a family cuddle pile, because once they had explored the house the kids had remembered how long they hadn’t seen Andrew. It’s nice. Tomorrow Andrew’s going to show them around Montreal for a bit, but for today they’re all happy like this. It’s good to have the entire family together again.

 

They only have two days together, but they’re the best two days Andrew’s had in a while. He gets to show the kids around Montreal, and they all get to see each other again. The dogs get to have all of them around, and they definitely seem happier than usually. Andrew’s not the only one here who misses his family.

 

Brent and the kids leave on an early flight, and the kids seem only barely awake, but Brent has to be back in Chicago on time so he can travel to San Jose with the team, and since they had wanted to have as much time together as possible they had decided it was worth the cranky kids.

Andrew gives all of them a long hug at the airport.

“Just fourteen sleeps,” he tells Carter and Kenzie, and they nod solemnly.  “I’ll call you later so you can tell me all about your flight.”

He kisses them both on the head and then they’re off through airport security. Andrew should be getting used to it by now, but it still feels like physical pain to watch them leave and know that he has to stay behind on his own. Just fourteen sleeps, he reminds himself. Just two weeks until he sees them again.

 

The Habs start February with a losing streak and Andrew’s frustrated. He feels like he should be doing more, like there should be some way to help the team more than he does right now, but nothing seems to work. They just can’t seem to figure themselves out.

It’s times like these that he probably misses Brent the most. Sure they talk, and Brent does his best to distract Andrew, but it’s just not the same.

He suspects that Brent has called the Gallys though, because they appear on Andrew’s doorstep one day when he had just settled down on the couch to watch TV and have a nap maybe.

“We heard about this place,” Gally says. “And we think you and the dogs would like it, so we thought we’d show you.”

“And you couldn’t have called ahead to warn me?” Andrew raises an eyebrow at them, but apparently it does nothing for either of them.

“We just remembered so we wanted to go before we forget,” Chucky says with a shrug, and Andrew is kind of impressed because he’s fairly sure Chucky’s full of shit right now, but his poker face is truly amazing.

“So, are you coming?” Gally asks, and well, it’s not like Andrew has anything better to do.

“Yeah okay. Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

He lets them in with a sigh, and disappears upstairs to put on clothes he can actually wear out into the cold.

 

As it turns out the Gallys were right, Andrew and the dogs do like the place they wanted to show them. It’s basically an indoor park where dog owners can come in the winter to play with their dogs away from the cold. It’s great for smaller dogs like Charlie and Bailey, since there’s no danger of losing them in the snow, and Andrew spends a fun two hours there. What’s amazing is that he really doesn’t think about how frustrating things are going for them right now.

He invites them to stay for dinner, which means they get to hang around for his video chat with the kids, but neither Andrew, nor Kenzie and Carter mind. Andrew puts the laptop on the kitchen island so they can talk while he prepares dinner. Gally and Chucky don’t contribute much at first, but when Andrew starts telling the kids about their little adventure with the dogs, they start to butt in with their own comments, and after a while their familiar bickering makes for an interesting addition to the conversation. They end up carrying the conversation when Andrew can’t and the kids eat it up. It’s fun, and Andrew finds himself smiling fondly after he took something out of the fridge and turns back around to see the Gallys arguing good-naturedly about whether they prefer Carter’s drawing or Kenzie’s. It’s been going on for a bit now, and their arguments are getting increasingly ridiculous.

“I think both of them are great,” Andrew says when he steps back where the kids can see him. “But maybe you should all settle this together the next time you can.”

There’s a pause while the four of them exchange looks, but Andrew knows he’s got them when Gally grins widely and says, “Bring it on!”

 

“I hear you went on an adventure with the Gallys today,” Brent says when they’re talking on the phone later.

“Did the kids tell you?”

Brent smiles. “They were really excited when we talked. I could barely get them to calm down enough to fall asleep.”

“Sorry about that. They tell you about the drawing competition?”

“They did. I hope Gally and Chucky plan on being in Montreal long enough during the bye week, or none of us will ever hear the end of it.”

“I think they are now,” Andrew says with a laugh. “It’s not like they can ever say no to a competition.”

“That’s true.” They lapse into silence for a moment, before Brent asks, “So you had a good day?”

“Yeah.” Andrew smiles. “Thanks for telling them how to help me out.”

“Who says I had anything to do with it?” Brent asks, but the look on his face leaves no doubt that it was really his idea. “You know I’ll always have your back.”

“I do,” Andrew says.

 

They manage to eke out an OT win against the Coyotes two days later, and Andrew feels better about things already. He manages to keep his good mood even though they lose the last two games before the bye week.

 

And then it’s finally February thirteenth and Andrew gets to pick up his family from the airport again. Kenzie has been walking for a while now, and Andrew hates that he’s missing. In the two weeks since he saw her last, she has started to want to run everywhere on her own, so when she sees Andrew at the airport, she struggles to get off Brent’s arms so she can run over to him. Andrew scoops her up with a laugh and squeezes her.

“Hey Cupcake,” he says, and she beams at him.

She snuggles into him and happily says, “Daddy!”

He lets her down shortly to hug Carter as well, and then she insists on walking at least part of the way to the car. Andrew smiles and after a quick kiss for Brent he leads the way, one kid holding on to each of his hands.

“Will the Gallys be there?” Carter asks him excitedly.

Andrew laughs. “I talked to them, they’re around this week so you guys can settle that drawing discussion. They’re looking forward to it.”

“When?”

“We can check in with them later to see what they have planned okay?”

“Okay.” Carter nods earnestly.

Andrew doesn’t mention that it’s mostly a formality to call the Gallys again. He had already talked to them, and they had spontaneously volunteered to have a sleep over with the kids so Andrew and Brent could have some time to themselves. And well, as much as Andrew loves to spend time with all of his family, he’s glad to have his husband to himself as well, so he jumped at the opportunity. It’s supposed to be a surprise for everyone though, so they had decided to set it up as a spontaneous offer for when he calls with the kids.

Brent puts the kids’ stuff away while Andrew makes lunch and then they pile into the movie room for an afternoon of kids movies and cuddling. As traditions go, Andrew thinks this one is pretty baller.

They call the Gallys while Brent makes dinner. Andrew thinks they’re doing pretty well with selling it as a completely spontaneous offer, and they’ve definitely got the kids fooled. But when he looks up at Brent to confirm whether he’s okay with it, too, he has one eyebrow raised. He nods with a small smile though and Andrew quickly makes plans with the Gallys to bring the kids over the next afternoon.

 

“So they spontaneously offered to babysit?” Brent says later when they’re getting ready for bed. “Just like that?” There’s a wry smile on his face, and Andrew knows better than to deny anything.

“Well they did offer spontaneously. They just did it last week when we talked about whether they’re staying in Montreal or not.”

Brent waits until Andrew has climbed into bed with him before he speaks again. “So do you have any ideas what we’re doing with all that time tomorrow?”

“One or two maybe.”

“Care to share?”

Andrew smiles. “Not particularly, no.”

Brent laughs and moves in closer. His hand slides around the back of Andrew’s neck so his fingers are tangled in his hair, and then he kisses him, soft and slowly, his lips coaxing Andrew’s mouth open. Andrew’s skin tingles where they’re touching and he sighs into it as he lays his hand on Brent’s hip. They’re in no hurry, and Andrew could lie like this and keep kissing forever. But Brent moves away to take a breath and then with a slow smile he whispers, “And now?”

Andrew chuckles. “Still no. It’s a surprise.”

“Ah well,” Brent sighs, “it was worth a try.”

“It was a good effort.” Andrew smiles at him before he turns away to turn off the light. When he rolls back towards Brent he’s met halfway. Brent’s arms close around him to hold him tight and Andrew snuggles into him with a content sigh. It’s always good to get to do this again.

He wakes up the next morning to a still sleeping husband and two kids climbing into bed with them. Andrew moves away from Brent to make room for them. There’s a little squabble about who gets to lie closer to him, but as proud as she looks to have made it here, Kenzie is still tired and ends up curling into Brent and goes right back to sleep. Andrew sits up and pulls Carter into his lap where he immediately snuggles into him.

“Morning, Shortcake,” he says with a smile.

“Morning, daddy.” Carter smiles up at him. “Can we have pancakes?”

Andrew laughs. “You really like your pancakes, don’t you?”

“But today’s special.”

“Oh well. Then I guess we do have to make pancakes.”

Carter just grins broadly.

It doesn’t look like Brent and Kenzie will be up soon, so Andrew gets up and tiptoes out of the room with Carter on one arm and a bundle of clothes on the other. He gets them dressed and bundled up and then they take the dogs for their morning walk.

They don’t go too far, since it’s too cold and neither of them has eaten yet, but Carter looks around curiously. He sticks close to Andrew’s side, holding his hand and asks questions about everything they see and then some.

Brent and Kenzie haven’t come down yet when they get back to the house. They take off their coats and Andrew gets both of them changed back into something more comfortable before they go and make pancakes for breakfast. Brent comes down with Kenzie in his arm just as Andrew takes the last pancake out of the pan. He smiles and after a quick peck onto Andrew’s lips he asks, “Did he talk you into making pancakes for breakfast?”

“I’ve been informed that it’s a special day,” Andrew says. “I couldn’t argue with that.”

Brent laughs and puts Kenzie down in her chair so he can help Carter set the table properly while Andrew makes him a cup of coffee and prepares everyone’s plates.

He gets to sit with Kenzie to help her with her food. Brent listens to Carter’s excited chatter about their walk and how he’s going to draw the best picture with Gally later. Kenzie levels her best unimpressed look at her brother and even manages to pull up her nose in something akin to disgust.

Andrew laughs and says, “You and Chucky are gonna do your best to beat them, won’t you?”

“Yes!” she declares, smiling widely at him.

“That’s my girl.” He gives her a fist bump.

 

Andrew finally gets a shower after breakfast and when he comes back down he gets pulled into a game with Carter that lasts until lunch. And then they already have to pack overnight bags for the kids and drive over to the Gallys’ place.

 

Gally opens the door with a wide grin on his face and ushers them in.

“Welcome to la maison Gally,” he says as he bends down to give Carter and Kenzie fist bumps. “I hope you feel right at home.”

He helps Kenzie out of her shoes and hangs up the kids’ coats before he leads them into the living room. Chucky’s sitting on the couch, but he gets up when he notices them coming in and smiles. He says hi to Carter and Kenzie, before he greets Andrew and Brent.

They all get the tour and by the time they’re back in the living room any reservations the kids might have had are gone. Andrew and Brent hang back a little while Gally and Chucky tell the kids all about the house.

And then it’s time to say goodbye. Carter and Kenzie don’t seem particularly sad to be left behind with the Gallys and Andrew releases a breath. It’s not that he hadn’t thought it would be okay, but he’s always glad to see that he’s right.

“Be good for me,” Andrew tells the kids and then after a last round of hugs he and Brent leave for their well-deserved free time.

Andrew takes Brent home, and because it’s still early they end up on the couch for some good old-fashioned making out. Andrew stops it before it can go anywhere, because if they do anything more right now they’re definitely going to be late for dinner. He pushes Brent away reluctantly. He’d like to follow and kiss him some more, but he’s got reservations for them and they still have time, but not that much.

Brent pouts and he rolls his eyes fondly.

“Later,” he promises with a short kiss. “We’ve got all night, remember?”

“You gonna make it worth the wait?”

Andrew smirks. “You know I will.”

He leans into Brent as they talk on the couch and he gets all caught up on their friends back in Chicago. Sure, they talk all the time, and Brent keeps him in the loop, but there’s always something going on, and some things are better talked about in person.

“I believe Jonny’s thinking about proposing to Kaner,” Brent says. “He’s been asking all these weird questions, and I guess he still believes he’s being subtle, but you know Jonny.”

Andrew snorts. “He’s not taking it slow, is he?”

“It’s not like we can talk though, is it?” Brent laughs.

“Well we did already have Carter.”

“Mhm. That we had.” Brent pauses. “I think Jonny thinks that he’s already lost eight years with Kaner and he doesn’t want to waste any more time. Besides, they got through the past nine years without killing each other, they will be fine.”

“Yeah, I get that. I wouldn’t want to miss any time either if I had already waited that long.”

“Good thing we didn’t have to, right?”

Andrew grins. “As if I had let you make me wait that long.”

“Why am I the one making you wait in this scenario?” Brent narrows his eyes at him.

Andrew gives him his best unimpressed look in return. “Please. We both know it was you who had the catching up to do.”

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t exactly expect to be swept off my feet by a guy who was practically a rookie.” He smiles softly and Andrew just _has_ to lean in to kiss him.

They have to get up and get ready and Andrew sighs a little when he sees Brent all dressed up in a shirt and pullover. He can’t say how much he appreciates the look, not just because of how good it looks on Brent, but how rarely he gets to see it these days. Brent sees him looking and steps close with a smile.

“Like what you see?” he asks.

“Mhm,” Andrew replies with a smile of his own, before he stretches up to press a kiss to his lips.

He takes Brent out for a fancy dinner. The restaurant had been a tip from Pricey, because god knows he’s one of the few guys Andrew actually trusts with a question like this. It’s a good tip; the atmosphere is nice and the food is great, and they both enjoy themselves. And well, it’s been five years since they started dating, but it’s still nice to go on a date every once in a while. Especially with the number of date nights they get to have these days. It’s just one item on a near endless list of things he misses since moving to Montreal.

Once they get home Andrew finally gets to make good on his promise from earlier. He kisses Brent long and slowly down in the hallway, his hands sliding underneath his pullover and tugging his shirt out of his slacks until he can feel Brent’s skin underneath his fingers. Brent’s arms slide around his shoulders and for a moment they just stand there kissing.

When they end the kiss Brent smiles at him. “I believe we have a bed upstairs that we can use.”

“I believe we do,” Andrew says with a small grin. He steps away and takes Brent’s hand and leads him upstairs.

 

They drive over to the Gallys for breakfast the next morning, so they can judge the drawings from the contest and pick up the kids. No one looks worse for wear which is good, and Carter and Kenzie have matching expectant grins on their faces when they walk into the living room. The table is already set and Andrew is not surprised in the least to see several stacks of pancakes among the other, much more nutritionist-approved breakfast foods. His son is a little schemer, neither Gally, nor Chucky ever stood a chance. There’s also a blanket fort still set up in front of the TV. Andrew would bet money on them having fallen asleep inside instead of going to bed.

They have breakfast first, and Andrew enjoys seeing how easily the Gallys fit in with their little family. Of course they had had lunch together in Chicago that one time, but this is different. The Gallys are mindful of not butting in too much, but they’re more familiar with Carter and Kenzie now and when they have their hands free when Andrew and Brent don’t, they help out without pausing. It’s good to see the kids so relaxed around Andrew’s teammates. Even if they don’t see them all that often, it’s important to him that they come to recognise them, if not as their “uncles” the way some of the Hawks are, at least as parts of their lives, however small.

Once everyone has had their fill and they have all helped clear the table, Andrew and Brent are sat down on the couch so the others can show them their drawings.

Kenzie and Chucky win the very serious rock, paper scissors match and get to go first. It seems Gally and Chucky really went all in on this, because from the looks of it there was glitter involved, which is a level of dedication they are most likely going to regret the day they realise that they’re finding glitter everywhere.

Kenzie’s and Chucky’s drawing is very red and blue at the first look, and Andrew needs to take a moment to really parse out what some of the scribbles mean.

“So that’s a dragon, I guess?” he says, pointing at the largest figure. It’s the one that’s easiest to recognise, probably, and Andrew’s best guess is that Chucky did most of it.

“And next to it is a princess?” Brent takes over.

“She’s not just a princess, she’s a knight, isn’t she?” Chucky says, to another nod from Kenzie.

“And is she fighting the dragon?” Brent wants to know.

“No!” Kenzie says, a little indignant. “Friends!”

“I bet they’re having the best adventure, aren’t they?” Andrew adds.

Kenzie nods again.

“Well done, you two.” Andrew smiles at them and Chucky bumps fists with Kenzie as they let Carter and Gally take over.

Gally’s and Carter’s drawing is… much more of a mess than the one Kenzie and Chucky did, and Andrew thinks he’s going to need some pointers.

Gally’s a good teammate though and before Andrew or Brent can try to make wild guesses, he says excitedly, “This is the hockey edition of Pirates in the Caribbean.”

And well, Andrew has to squint a bit maybe, but yes, that does resemble a ship.

“Okay so that’s you?” Brent starts, pointing at a small figure, and looking at Carter questioningly. “And you’re the Captain?”

Carter nods, and Andrew takes over. “And those two are your dad and I, right?”

That was the easy part, because they’re the only figures in red, and red and blue that are standing close together. They kind of have to wing it for the rest, because while some people are fairly easy to identify, a lot of the figures look pretty similar. Carter has even snuck in Sharpy and Saader in green and blue respectively, and Andrew is fairly sure that Gally’s the one who was responsible for most of the Habs players. And PK, who’s identifiable as the only one in yellow and standing close to one of the Habs, who Andrew only knows is supposed to be Pricey thanks to the cowboy hat on his head. He can only imagine Carter’s protest at including a Predator in his picture. His little guy has strong opinions on hockey.

He’s never going to forget that time Brent ran into Torey Krug during a game against the Bruins and just kind of held him for a long while. Carter had been adamant about not hugging players who scored against the Hawks.

And well, then they have to do the actual judging. Without having it end in tears and bad blood. Luckily he and Brent have been in this game long enough to have a plan for these kinds of situations.

“Well, you made it really hard to decide this,” Brent says.

“Yeah, I think all of you did a really good job. They’re both so good.”

“I don’t think we can pick a real winner here.”

Both Carter and Kenzie nod seriously, and then Carter says, “Then we need a vote.”

“Vote!” Kenzie agrees and Andrew and Brent exchange a look.

“A vote?” Andrew asks, and both of them nod again.

“Ask the teams,” Carter adds, as if he already knew what they were going to say next.

Andrew looks over at Brent, who gives him a shrug, and shrugs himself.

“Well, we can definitely try that. But I don’t know how fast everyone will answer.”

“Well they need to think, yes?” Carter says, as if Andrew should have thought of that himself.

“Okay then we’ll have a vote.”

It’s a matter of minutes for Andrew to send out photos (and short explanations to a group chat and then they’ve only got to wait for everyone’s reactions.

The first ones come in fairly quickly. Lehky’s vote is for Kenzie and Chucky, while Kaner and Jonny both vote in favour of Carter and Gally. Sharpy texts that his girls told him to vote for Kenzie, but that he thinks Carter did really well, too. Duncs predictably goes with pirates. Pricey types for ages, but ends up sending a selfie that was clearly taken by Subban, not him. They’re both wearing cowboy hats and PK actually captions it with ‘ _But where’s my cowboy hat?’_ They vote for the pirates, too. Arty goes for the dragon and princess, as do the Breadman and Marky, and it seems to be a thing that Russians love Kenzie, which Andrew finds a little hilarious.

In the end the vote is pretty evenly split, and Carter and Kenzie finally accept the verdict.

 

“We’ve got one more,” Gally says. “One that we all collaborated on.”

It’s the largest one, and from the looks of it they taped four large sheets of paper together. It shows some sort of hockey game, which Andrew should have expected considering who was involved.  It’s not quite clear who’s playing, and both teams would get matching too many men penalties, because there’s definitely more than ten guys or women on the ice. It’s awesome, and Andrew immediately says that out loud.

“It’s for you,” Carter says seriously.

“For me?”

“Yes.” Carter nods. “So you don’t forget.”

Andrew smiles. “Come here,” he says to Carter and Kenzie, and they both come immediately. He wraps them in a hug. “I could never forget. Not when I call you every day.”

“Yes, but what if you can’t call?”

Andrew holds them a little tighter. “Then I still think of you. And I always have your dad to remind me. And well, now I have this as well.”

Carter nods solemnly, and over his head Andrew can see Brent watching them with a soft smile.

 

They leave not long after that, the drawing for Andrew rolled up and safely in Brent’s hands so it won’t get squashed.

 

They take the kids to Redpath Museum for their last full day in Montreal, and they absolutely love it. It’s a fun day, and afterwards Carter can’t stop talking about how amazing the dinosaurs were, while Kenzie was a lot more into the sea shells. Andrew nods along, even as Carter tells him all about the Triceratops skull again. This was definitely a success.

 

He helps Carter and Kenzie pack their stuff once they get home, and both of them drag their feet a little. Andrew gets it, he’d like them to stay longer, too, but it’s not exactly an option right now.

He convinces both of them to pack most of their stuff, even though they insist on leaving some of it behind. Carter argues that they’re coming back anyways so they can leave at least some things here. When he doesn’t change his mind after Andrew tells him that they don’t know how long it will be before they get to come to Montreal again, Andrew just accepts it.

Brent’s just starting on dinner when he comes back down, and he gives him a wry smile.

“Did they finally convince you to let them leave toys behind for next time?” he asks.

“Yeah, Carter had some very convincing arguments.”

Brent laughs, and leans over for a quick peck on Andrew’s lips as he comes to stand beside him. “He’s getting far too good at those, isn’t he?”

“We’ve created a monster.” Andrew grins as he grabs the lettuce and gets started on a salad.

 

Last nights together are always a little bittersweet, and they draw them out as long as they can. When Carter and Kenzie come to join them in the morning, they just curl up with them and go back to sleep. They don’t want to leave either.

Andrew makes waffles for breakfast, and then the house descends into the typical pre-travelling chaos. Brent and Andrew double-check that Carter and Kenzie have everything they wanted to take home with them, and there’s a last sweep around the house for that one thing that somehow ended next to the couch instead of in the luggage. And then there’s a last round of cuddles for the dogs and they finally leave.

 

“How long?” Carter asks when they’re at the airport, and Andrew has to swallow.

“I don’t know yet,” Andrew says. “I’m not sure when I will have time again. We will have to work hard so we can be in the playoffs.”

Carter’s face falls, but Andrew can see he’s trying to be brave. “Then you need to do your best, daddy.”

“I will.” Andrew reaches out and pulls him and Kenzie close. “I want you to be proud of me after all.”

The hug doesn’t last long enough, but they really have to leave and go through security. Brent says goodbye with a quick hug and a kiss.

“I’ll see you next month,” he says.

Andrew nods. “Yeah, until next month.”

And then Brent squeezes his hand one last time and leaves.

 

His first game after the break is Brent’s 900th career game, and Andrew would love nothing more than to be there. But the Habs are playing the Jets at home and so he doesn’t even get to watch it until after.

“And now on to 1000?” he asks him during their phone call the next day.

Brent groans. “Don’t make me feel old.”

“You’re not old, you’re experienced.”

There’s a pause before Brent laughs. “I’m not sure that’s better.”

“It was worth a try.” Andrew grins, even though Brent can’t see it.

 

The weeks until the Hawks play in Montreal are largely uneventful. Both of them win more than they lose, and Brent gets his 400th career point in a win over the Preds, which Andrew likes just fine. They’re not rivals anymore, but that doesn’t mean he likes the Preds any better than he used to.

 

This time there are no back to back games involved so Andrew picks his husband up from the airport. Brent’s one of the last ones to get off the plane so Andrew gets to say hi to the guys as they pass him. He also has to wonder about the knowing smiles some of them are giving him. Going by Jonny’s terrible poker face and the broad grin the Breadman gives him Brent must be up to something.

Andrew finally spots Brent, and he can’t stop the smile spreading across his face. He’s so focussed on Brent that he completely misses who’s with him until a small figure peels away from the group and Carter barrels into Andrew. Andrew’s grin threatens to split his face in two as he catches Carter and hugs him.

“What are you doing here, Shortcake?” he asks, still grinning.

“Visiting you,” Carter says and his broad smile matches Andrew’s.

When Andrew looks up, Brent is standing in front of him, smiling, Kenzie on his arm and Liz next to him.

“I heard you have a couple of days off and a really long home stand after, so we thought we’d surprise you,” Brent explains.

Andrew gives him a quick kiss. “You definitely managed that.”

He greets Liz with a hug and takes her bag, before he leads the way out and to the car.

 

Andrew makes lunch for everyone once they get home. They’re definitely going to have to get groceries later. His fridge isn’t exactly stocked to feed three adults and two kids. Brent gives Liz the tour before they help the kids unpack. Andrew can hear Carter tell Liz all about the house and what they did the last time they were in Montreal, and Andrew knows she has heard all of it before, but he can hear her laughter as she replies, and he smiles to himself.

After their late lunch Andrew puts a shopping list together and they go grocery shopping, instead of their usual first day ritual.

Liz disappears into the guest room afterwards. They have just enough time to watch a movie before the guys come over for dinner.

It’s only Duncs, Jonny and Pat, who are having dinner with them, because Brent had put his foot down before anyone else could ask about tagging along. And well, Andrew would have been fine if there had been more of the guys, but he also knows them well enough to know that if they had agreed to invite anyone else the whole thing would have devolved until they had to host the entire team. As much as Andrew still loves the Hawks, he doesn’t need to host all of them the evening before he has to play against them.

Jonny, Pat and Duncs arrive shortly before dinner is done and Brent puts them right to work and lets them set the table. He also sicks Carter on them to oversee their work. It’s a genius way to keep Carter occupied, and soon enough Andrew can hear him order Jonny around while Pat and Duncs egg him on. Kenzie is happily sitting at the living room table colouring, but Andrew can see her look up when she hears her brother from the other room, and tilt her head as if she’s considering what she hears. Andrew winks at her when she looks at him, and she gives him a bright grin.

Sitting down together for dinner brings back fond memories of all the times they’ve done this in Chicago. There’s the usual chirps around the table, and Jonny constantly has to stop himself from cursing in front of the kids, because he literally can’t stop his potty mouth ever.

Andrew’s sitting next to Brent, the two of them in between their kids, and once they’re all done with eating and just sit there talking, Andrew gets to lean into his husband and joke with their friends. And maybe he’s missing Saader a little bit right now, because he’s definitely missing from this group, but he’s ready to take what he can get. Besides, Liz may not be Saader, but she fits in easily, thanks to all of the years she has spent taking care of Kenzie and Carter, and the fact that Andrew and Brent have always considered her to be a part of their family.

“Hey so, there’s something we wanted to tell you,” Jonny says all of a sudden. He exchanges a look with Pat, who smiles and nods encouragingly. “Because well, we decided that you should know before we officially announce it.” He pauses and takes a deep breath, and then he can’t hold back a soft smile anymore. “We’re getting married.”

There’s a moment before they all break out into broad grins and Duncs reaches over to thump them on their backs.

“That’s great news,” Brent says. “You got a date already?”

“We don’t even know where we’re gonna do it, how are we supposed to have agreed on a date yet?” Kaner asks, laughing.

“You’ve still got time to decide. It’s not like you have to get married this summer,” Andrew says. “It’s not like you have to copy us in everything.”

He grins at Jonny’s indignant squawk, and then he looks over at Brent when he takes his hand under the table and brushes a finger over the ring on Andrew’s finger. There’s probably worse things Jonny and Pat could do than copy them.

 

Their friends leave when it gets close to the kids’ bedtime. While Brent cleans up the last remains of dinner, Andrew gets Carter and Kenzie ready for bed and reads them their story. Carter falls asleep in Andrew’s lap about halfway through the story, and once Andrew has made sure that Kenzie’s asleep, too, the carries him over to his room and puts him to bed.

Brent and Liz are sitting on the couch when Andrew comes back down and joins them. He slots himself in underneath Brent’s arm and burrows into his side.

“So how long are the three of you staying?” he asks Liz.

She smiles. “Well we haven’t booked our return flight yet, and I got nothing to attend to back in Chicago, so we can theoretically stay as long as you want us to. Though I’d say we should probably leave when you leave for that away game in Florida on April third.”

Andrew nods. He knows they both close out the regular season with road trips, but this way the kids get some time at home before they leave for Kelowna in the summer.

“Sounds good to me,” he says, smiling. “Thanks for doing this.”

“They miss you so much, I can deal with travelling with them so you can see each other.”

Brent squeezes his shoulder and drops a kiss to the top of his head. “She actually suggested it herself. I wasn’t going to subject her to Carter and Kenzie travelling, but Liz insisted.”

“Maybe I was just curious about the house. Besides, you’re gone more than Andrew is in that time, so I’m just making things easier for myself.”

Liz’ grin is shit-eating and Andrew has to laugh. “Nice thinking,” he says and reaches over so they can bump fists.

They don’t stay up long after that. Both Brent and Andrew have morning skates the next day, and Liz looks like she’ll be glad to get some sleep, too. But it’s nice to do some catching up, because even if Andrew talks to Liz whenever he calls, they don’t have a lot of time to chat. He usually wants to speak to the kids, and she gets that.

 

Walking into the Centre Bell with Brent is a new experience somehow, even though they’ve done this before. They share a quick kiss, but then they have to go their separate ways.

When they come out for warm-ups Liz is there on the Habs’ end with Carter and Kenzie. Andrew grins as he stops next to them. They all smile at each other through the glass, and when Andrew touches his glove to it Carter jumps up and down excitedly and hits the same spot with the flat of his palm.

 

Lehky knocks their shoulders together when they’re back in the locker room and grins at him. “You didn’t say that your kids would come here, too.”

“They surprised me as well when I picked them up from the airport.” Andrew laughs.

“Are they just here for the game?”

“No, they’re staying for the home stand.”

Lehky grins at that. “So do we finally get to meet them?”

“I’ll have to think about it. Not sure I want to scare them with Marky’s mug.” Andrew grins as well, and Lehky knocks their shoulders together with a laugh.

“Don’t let him hear that. He’s been hoping to meet your daughter since he’s heard about her, I think.”

“Him and every Russian I played with since she was born, apparently.”

They share another laugh and then it’s time to go out. They’ve got hockey to play.

Andrew feels good about this game, and why shouldn’t he? His family is here, he gets to spend time with his kids, and he’s really got no reason to feel bad. Still, they don’t manage to win. They lose the game 4-2 and well, it’s not fine, but they made an effort so that has to count for something.

Carter seems a bit torn about the result. Unlike Kenzie, who just seems happy to see them, Andrew can see that something’s bothering him. Andrew lets him think it through on the way home, but when Carter’s in bed, waiting for his good night story, because Kenzie already fell asleep on the way home, Andrew sits down on the edge of the bed and asks, “What’s bothering you, Shortcake?”

Carter pulls a face. “Who do we cheer?” he asks finally, and ah.

“You can cheer for whoever you want,” he says. “If you want to cheer for the Hawks when they play against the Habs then that’s fine. If you want to cheer for the Habs then that’s fine, too. And you can always just cheer for both teams, if you want to.”

Carter crawls out from under his blanket and nestles himself against Andrew’s side. “Aren’t you sad?”

“Because we lost?” Carter nods. “Well, it’s not nice, that’s true. But that’s hockey. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and you have to work harder so you don’t lose the next time.”

“And playing against daddy?” There’s a serious look on Carter’s face as he asks it, and Andrew can see that he has thought hard about this. Andrew squeezes his shoulder for a second, and then he looks at him just as seriously.

“Well whatever happens when we play on the ice is hockey, right? You can imagine it like a box in your head. Everything that happens out there goes into the hockey box. And everything that happens when we don’t play against each other is in the family box.” Carter scrunches us his face in confusion, so Andrew tries another approach. “You remember when you and Kenzie drew with the Gallys because you wanted to know who draws better?”

Carter nods tentatively this time.

“Well, you were both trying to win, weren’t you?” Another nod. “But that doesn’t change that Kenzie is your sister and you like her, right?” Carter nods again, and Andrew thinks he’s finally getting it. “And it’s the same for your daddy and me. We both want to win, but that doesn’t change that we love each other.”

That seems to satisfy Carter, because he nods again, and crawls back under the covers and says, “Story now?”

“Alright,” Andrew says, laughing, and picks up the book so he can read to him.

 

“Carter was worried about us playing against each other,” Andrew tells Brent later. “He asked me about it when I brought him to bed.”

Brent makes a soft “ah” sound, and says, “So that’s what was bothering him.”

“Part of it, yeah. He also wanted to know who to cheer for.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said he could cheer for whoever he wants to cheer for. And that he could always cheer for both of our teams if he doesn’t want to decide.”

He can hear that Brent’s smiling when he says, “And the other thing?”

“Well, I said that just like he wanted to beat Kenzie when they had that drawing contest with the Gallys, we want to win against each other, but that it doesn’t change that we love each other.”

“He accepted that?”

“Yeah, it was enough for him.”

“We really got us a little worrier, didn’t we?” Brent’s voice is warm, and Andrew smiles into the darkness, as he reaches out to twine their fingers together.

“Well, he is your son.”

“Yours, too though. He definitely picked up his trouble-making ways from you.”

Andrew laughs. “Guilty as charged.”

Brent presses a kiss to his temple. “It’s good that I love both of you.”

Andrew only lifts their hands to his mouth and kisses Brent’s knuckles.

 

Brent has to fly back to Chicago the next day for the Hawks’ game against the Sens, and while the kids seem a little sad to say goodbye, Andrew gets the feeling they’re still happy about getting to spend time with him instead. Brent hugs and kisses both of them.

“Have fun with your daddy,” he tells them. “And don’t stress him out too much.”

Kenzie and Carter both nod, and Brent smiles before he leans in to give Andrew a quick kiss. “Good luck,” he says.

Andrew leans in for a kiss of his own and echoes him, “Good luck.”

They smile at each other and then Brent has to leave to catch his flight. It will have to do until they see each other again.

 

Andrew gets to go home and hang out with his kids, which he has every intention to enjoy thoroughly. He’s sitting on the living room floor, playing with Kenzie when he asks, “Hey, do you guys want to come along to practice tomorrow?”

Carter and Kenzie both nod eagerly.

“Will Gally and Chucky be there?” Carter asks.

“I’m sure they will, Shortcake.”

 

Andrew warns the guys that he’s bringing the kids, and somehow it’s the only thing they can seem to talk about at practice. It’s a little ridiculous, even though Andrew gets it. His kids are awesome, he’d be excited to meet them as well, if he didn’t know them already. Still he mentions it to Lehky, who smiles at him.

“You know, we’re all just curious to meet your family. They’re important to you, and apart from the Gallys and Phil none of us got to meet them yet.”

“I’ve kind of hogged them every time you guys could have had a chance to meet them, haven’t I?” Andrew smiles a bit embarrassed, but Lehky shrugs.

“I mean, it’s not like we can hold it against you. You don’t really get to see them anymore. You’re just one of us now, so we’re curious.”

Andrew smiles. “Yeah, I get it.”

 

Andrew fetches the kids when he’s sure everyone is decent. He hangs back a little while Carter immediately peels away from him to make his rounds, and Kenzie attaches herself to Chucky, who looks surprised, but picks her up and walks around the room to introduce her to the others. It’s good that he does, because that means he’s free to at least stay close enough to Carter to run interference.

Things go exceedingly well. As Lehky said Marky is excited to meet Kenzie, and Andrew is fairly sure he and Chucky are teaching her Russian words before someone complains that they’re hogging her. When Carter meets Webs, he declares that he’s alright now that he’s with a better team, which Webs accepts with a wry smile. And while Kenzie is off in a corner, charming the Habs’ d-men, Carter’s eyes are really big as he asks Pricey if he’s really a cowboy.

Pricey laughs, and says, “Well PK likes to say so, and I do have horses back home.”

“Real horses?” Carter asks, and Pricey pulls out his phone to show him. And because Carter is Carter, when they all finally leave, it’s with an invitation to spend a couple days at Pricey’s over the summer and the Gallys coming over for lunch. Sometimes Andrew thinks he should be worried about how his kids manage these things.

“We’ll have to see how everyone’s schedules work out,” he tells Carter, not for the first time, when he excitedly tells Liz about Pricey’s invitation on the way home. “And your new little sister will be born, and things will be really busy.”

“She can come, too,” Carter says.

Andrew laughs. “Well, we should probably talk to Pricey about that. It’s his house. I’m sure you still remember how things were after Kenzie was born, we don’t know if he wants to deal with that.”

Carter looks like he wants to argue more about it, but Andrew quickly asks Kenzie what she and Chucky were up to and he doesn’t say anything. For now at least. Andrew’s sure it won’t be the last thing they heard about this.

It doesn’t come up again until they call Brent between lunch and his pre-game nap, but then Carter can barely hold himself back.

“And he invited us to see them this summer,” he tells Brent, all big eyes and excitement.

“Did he?” Brent seems more amused than anything. “We’ll have to see how our schedules work out then.”

Carter actually pouts at that. “That’s what daddy says.”

“Well maybe that’s because it’s true,” Brent says mildly. “And we’ve got your other sister to think about as well.” Carter’s about to protest again, when Brent adds, “We will talk to him about it. We just can’t promise that it will work out this summer. But if it doesn’t the horses will still be there next year, okay?”

Carter nods slowly, and Brent and Andrew exchange a look, hopefully this will be enough for now.

 

Time with the kids practically flies by. Andrew soaks it up as much as he can. He loves waking up with both kids in his bed, and coming home from practice to their noise and general chaos. He even kind of loves the arguments they get into, which probably means that they should think about doing things differently next season. Either way the time passes too fast, and before Andrew has even realised it, he’s packing for the road trip and helps Liz gather all the things Carter and Kenzie have managed to leave all around the house. And because Andrew knows how much he will miss them and how much they will miss him, he doesn’t say anything when both of them come crawling up the stairs into his bed after the game that evening. He just lifts the covers and makes room so they can wriggle close to him. He barely has time to put an arm around each of them before they’re fast asleep.

 

They’re still asleep when he wakes up and for a moment he can only smile down at them. Andrew reaches over to the nightstand, careful not to wake them, and picks up his phone to take a selfie and send it to Brent. ‘ _Feels like something’s missing_ ’ he sends along with it.

Brent’s reply is almost immediate, and it’s a selfie of his own. He’s lying alone in their bed in Chicago, looking soft and Andrew aches to be there with him. ‘ _Yeah, here too’_ says the accompanying text, which doesn’t help the ache.

 

Liz and the kids leave before Andrew does, so he gets to bring them to the airport and drop them off at security.

“How long?” Carter asks when they’re saying goodbye, and Andrew gives him a serious look.

“I don’t know. It’s the playoffs soon, and we don’t want to jinx anything, do we?”

Carter nods, looking as if that reply satisfies him. He gives Andrew an extra hug and says, “Good luck, daddy.”

Andrew smiles as he hugs him back. “Thanks, Shortcake. I’ll do my best.”

Kenzie looks a little tired, but when Andrew hugs her goodbye she kisses his cheek and says “Good luck” as well. He smiles at her. “Thank you, Cupcake.”

Liz grins at him when she takes Kenzie back from him. “You’ll have to do without a good luck kiss from me.”

“What, and not have Montreal media speculate if I’m cheating on my husband with the nanny? I’m wounded, Liz.” Andrew clutches his heart theatrically, but he grins.

Liz laughs and lightly punches his arm. “Just go out there and win some games. We’ll be watching.”

Andrew salutes. “Aye, aye, sir.”

He and Liz hug each other goodbye, and then she takes Carter’s hand and leaves through security. Andrew watches them until he can’t see them anymore, and only then does he head over towards the team plane. He’s still got a season to finish.

 

The Habs split the games on their road trip evenly, with two wins and two losses, which could be worse, Andrew guesses. He catches himself thinking that they’re not the Hawks at least, who end their season with four losses, even if two of them happen in OT.

But yeah, they’re hungry, _Andrew_ is hungry. And there’s nothing like the playoffs to satisfy that hunger. He itches to get started.

They start into their series with a loss, but claw their way back and manage to push the series to game six at least. And maybe all Andrew manages to collect are penalty minutes, but he can deal with that as long as they hold on to their space in the playoffs. They play their Game 5 on the same day as the Hawks play their Game 4, so Andrew doesn’t see their score for the longest time.

In fact, he doesn’t see the score at all, because someone hits him in the head during the game and he ends up in hospital, where he gets diagnosed with another concussion, and fuck his life.

It’s Chaunette who sneaks into his room to tell him, and who calls Liz so someone knows what’s going on. And god, Andrew just kind of hates everything right now, and so he only grumbles until Chaunette leaves him alone with his thoughts.

 

If he thought the concussion back in December was bad, this is even worse. At least in December he knew it was still the middle of the season, now it’s the playoffs and he can’t even see how his team does. Chaunette comes to pick him up the next morning to drive him home, and Andrew’s just…angry. The worst part is that he doesn’t even know why. It’s completely irrational. The pain and the dizziness don’t help either. There’s nothing about this he feels particularly good about.

Chaunette asks him if he needs anything, but when he only grumbles around, she just sighs and says she’ll be back later to check in on him and take the dogs for a walk. And hell, Andrew knows she deserves better than this mood, but he has no idea how to fix it either.

So because it’s clearly the mature thing to do, he drags himself into his bed and mopes.

 

It kind of turns into a thing. Andrew doesn’t want it to be, but he can’t seem to get a hold of his moods and the mood swings are Bad. Some days he’s actually in a good mood, but then something happens, and however small it is he gets angry. Other days things just set him off into a depressive spiral, which isn’t particularly fun either. And all through it he can only think about how he can’t be with his family, even though the playoffs are over, and how if things keep going at this rate he’s going to miss his daughter’s birth. And it’s unfair for all of them and especially unfair to him and what the hell has he done to deserve any of this. Some days all he wants is to bury his head against Brent’s chest and fall asleep wrapped in his arms. Other days he kind of hates him for being so goddamn healthy and not suffering as well.

It’s horrible.

 

He knows that Chaunette and Brent have been talking, because when he can finally handle phone calls again Brent just tells him to take as much time as he needs. And well, it’s not like Andrew doesn’t feel up to joining them in Kelowna, especially knowing that their daughter is due soon, but however bad the mood swings are, he’s rational enough to know he can’t subject the kids to this yet.

Chaunette is a real trooper, who helps him out in the meantime.

“Thanks for sticking around,” he tells her on one of his good days. “I know I haven’t made it easy for you.”

She smiles wryly. “That’s probably an understatement. But you’re my friend, and since Brent and I agree that you obviously need this time, I’m doing my best not to hold it against you. But you need to be more careful. You can’t ruin your health for hockey. You’ve got a family to think of.”

“Yeah… I know. I’ll… I’ll try.”

And that’s really the thing about all of this. He does have a family to think about. And however important hockey is to him right now, he has seen what head injuries do to people. Hell, he has seen what they do to the people around them. And Andrew really really doesn’t want to be that guy. He wants to have time and be in his right mind, and whenever hockey is finally over for him, he wants to be able to enjoy growing old with Brent and see their kids grow up and do whatever they will end up doing.

But all of that is more easily said than done, and however willing Andrew is to work on this, there’s not a lot he can do, and there’s still bad days. He tries to grit his teeth and work through it, but it only works so well, and whatever he does he can’t help that he’s slipping into another bad episode.

 

He ends up missing several calls with the kids, and it should probably concern him more that he hears nothing about it from Brent, but he’s pissed at himself, and pissed at the world, and just generally not in a good place, so he doesn’t even realise it until he wakes up and smells coffee.

The house is silent, and when Andrew ventures out of bed and pads down the stairs to the kitchen Brent’s the only one there. He swallows, just as Brent hears his footsteps and turns around. He’s quite obviously pissed off. Hell, he’s probably the angriest Andrew has ever seen him in their relationship, and he honest to god has to say he gets it. He would be angry as well, if he was in Brent’s position.

But Brent says nothing, just gets him a cup of coffee and some toast, and waits until he has eaten. It’s probably more than Andrew deserves.

When Andrew has finished his food, Brent puts away his plate and sits back down across from him. Andrew bites his lip as he waits for Brent to start talking.

“I know I said you should take the time you need, but I don’t know what the hell you’ve been doing these past days,” Brent says finally. “I can deal with you shutting me out, hell, if you just can’t deal with the kids, I can deal with that, too. Whatever you need. But shutting the kids out without even a word? Not fucking cool, Andrew.”

He actually sounds fairly calm as he says it, but the tension in his jaw is enough to tell Andrew how angry he really is.

Andrew lowers his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know that doesn’t cut it, and I know I have to make amends with Carter and Kenzie as well, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

It earns him a terse nod from Brent, and then with a sigh, the tension drains out of him and he reaches for Andrew’s hand across the table. “I know you don’t want to hurt them, but they’ve been heartbroken. And it was even harder not to have a decent explanation for them. Please don’t do this to us. At least tell me that you have a bad day.”

Andrew nods. “I’ll try to do better.”

“That’s all I can ask of you.” Brent nods as well, and then he gets up and pulls Andrew along with him. “Now come on, I’ve had to get up way too early to get here, and I’m leaving again on the earliest flight tomorrow morning. I really need some sleep right now.”

Andrew follows him.

 

Things aren’t perfect yet, but Andrew somehow feels more settled after Brent leaves. He’s not sure what has changed, but he’s having a lot more good days than bad ones now, and he’s starting to feel like he might be able to join his family soon. The sliver of hope actually really helps him, and even when he has bad days they’re not as bad as they used to be. Telling himself that it won’t be long now, that he’s going to see his kids and his husband in the near future usually manages to cheer him up enough to snap out of it. And when he talks to Brent he can see that he knows it, too.

Things with Carter and Kenzie are still a little tense, but he can see they’re starting to come around, and he has hopes that they will be good again once they’re all back together. And since there’s nothing better to reassure them than getting healthy and being there for them again, he does his best to make it happen soon.

 

He doesn’t manage in time for the birth of their daughter, but he’s feeling that it’s a close thing. He’s a bit sad that he can’t be there to calm Brent down this time, and that Brent will have to handle the first days on his own, but it is what it is.

And when he tells Brent about it, he smiles and says, “Don’t worry. It’s more important to me that you’re getting better. We’ve got everything handled over here.”

“I’ll try to be with you soon,” Andrew says, and they both know he means it.

 

Dylan Ivy is born on May 20th, and Andrew almost wants to laugh. She’s healthy and even if he only has a picture for now, he knows she is perfect. He really can’t wait to see her.

 

Brent keeps him updated and sends him as many pictures of everyone as possible, but Andrew’s favourite comes about two weeks after Dylan’s birth.

It’s of Brent lying on their couch in Kelowna, Dylan nestled in the crook of one arm, and Kenzie and Carter cuddled up to him as well. He’s smiling at the camera, and he’s looking soft and relaxed, if a little tired. The ache to be there with them and fit himself under Brent’s arm, his face nestled against his neck, is almost overwhelming.

He texts back ‘ _Miss u_ ’ and starts looking up flights. Because the thing is, he’s feeling well again, his mood swings have finally all but disappeared and he’s sure that what little effects he still feels he can handle, even with the kids around.

 

The first thing Carter and Kenzie tell him during their skype call that evening is that they miss him, too.

Andrew smiles. “I’ll be there soon, I promise. And then we’ll have all summer together,” he says.

“How long is soon?” Carter asks, which makes Andrew laugh.

“Just a few more days, I hope. Maybe next week.”

“And how many sleeps?”

“Well that depends on how fast I can get done here. Let’s say seven sleeps. And maybe I’ll be there before that.”

Carter nods. “Seven sleeps.”

“So what have you been up to today?”

Carter and Kenzie launch into a joint account of everything they’ve done today, and about the baby, who seems equally fascinating to both of them. It lasts them until they have to go to bed, and Andrew gets to read them their goodnight stories.

Once they’re fast asleep Brent takes the tablet to their bedroom so they can talk without the kids.

“How are you coping?” Andrew asks.

Brent smiles softly and says, “My mum’s around a lot for now, helping out. And Duncs and Colton are always just a phone call away when I need a bit of a break. I just haven’t gotten a lot of sleep.”

“I hate having to let you do everything alone,” Andrew sighs.

“I can deal. Seven sleeps at most, remember?”

“I do.” Andrew smiles.

 

It doesn’t actually take him that long. He organises everything he needs to organise for the summer, packs up and then he’s on a flight to Kelowna the next Monday. Brent is waiting at the airport, Carter and Kenzie next to him, and they both come running up to him as soon as they see him. Andrew squats down to catch them and then he has two arms full of kids, and all he can do is hold them tight. God, he’s missed them.

He only lets go of them to wrap his arms around Brent, breathing in his scent, and then again when they’re picking up the dogs, who are excited to get out of their crates.

Once Andrew has calmed them down a little, Brent smiles at him.

“Ready to go?”

Andrew nods, and because Andrew still has his hands full, Brent takes over the baggage cart with his stuff and leads them out to the car.

 

“So we actually have a surprise for you,” Brent tells him shortly before they reach the house.

“A surprise?” Andrew raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, a surprise.” Brent smiles all mysteriously, but before Andrew can even try to make a guess they’re already stopping in front of the house.

Nancy is waiting at the front door for them, little Dylan in her arms. She smiles at Andrew and kisses his cheek as she hands her over.

“Welcome home,” she says, and Andrew smiles back, before he looks down at the baby in his arms.

He’s so happy to see her that he can’t contain his grin. He was absolutely right, she is perfect.

Brent comes up and wraps his arm around Andrew’s waist and kisses his temple before smiling softly at both of them.

“Come on,” he says. “Carter and Kenzie still got to show you your surprise.”

He looks down at them and smiles, too.

“Lead the way then, I can’t wait to see it.”

They lead him to the living room, towards where Charlie and Bailey have their beds. They’re sitting a bit in front of them, obviously curious but not quite sure what to do, because instead of two dog beds there’s three, and one of them is already occupied.

Carter and Kenzie lead Andrew over and Carter says, “This is Millie. She’s a baby like Dyl.”

It takes him a moment, but then Andrew asks, “You got a puppy?”

“Yeah,” Brent says from behind him. “I thought it was fitting. Three kids, three dogs.”

Andrew laughs. “You’re ridiculous you know?”

Brent just grins at him, and Andrew steps close to him to stretch up and kiss him.

Brent takes Dylan from him so Andrew can sit down and let Millie sniff his hand and pet her. Before he even realises it he is surrounded by his kids, and their dogs, and Brent is sitting next to him, and this right here is Andrew’s home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whop an that's it! For now at least (there's more waiting to be cleaned up or written...).   
> Thank you so much to everyone who read, gave kudos and commented! <3


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